Comics in Context #176: Birthday In Baltimore

Longtime readers know that I typically celebrate my birthday by going to see a Broadway show, including Monty Python’s Spamalot in 2005 (see “Comics in Context” #82) and Disney’s Tarzan in 2006. They may also recall that I spent the Friday after Thanksgiving last year making a day trip to see the “Cartoon America” at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (see “Comics in Context” #157 and 159).

That went so well that instead of seeing a play, this year I decided to go down to Baltimore on my birthday, a city I’d visited once before, in 1996. (The round trip train fare costs less than a pair of Broadway orchestra seats these days.) The principal reason for making the trip was to see Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, a showcase for pop culture collectibles, including comics, founded by Steve Geppi, the owner of Diamond Comics Distributors, the last significant English language comics distribution company standing. I hadn’t been one of the lucky people who were invited to the grand opening last fall, but I’d been waiting for the right opportunity to go ever since. And here it was, on a pleasantly warm and sunny day in the Northeast, following a few days in the 80s (highly unusual for April), and, before that, weeks of lingering winter cold.

I find train travel relaxing, and it spares me the hassles of dealing with taxi drivers and airport security. It proved remarkably easy to get from New York City down to Geppi’s Museum. After a two and a half hour journey from New York’s Penn Station, Amtrak train pulled into Baltimore’s own Penn Station, whose waiting room, with its beautiful stained glass skylights, was the first of many striking examples of local architecture I would see on this whirlwind trip. At this Penn Station I got aboard a light rail shuttle to a transfer point, where I chatted with a fellow passenger. (This, by the way, was a reminder of Baltimore’s friendly atmosphere. On my previous trip there, I was startled that total strangers would say hello to me on the street. This never happens in New York City, or Boston or Washington or even San Diego, for that matter.) Then I boarded the main light rail train and got off at the Convention Center stop, which is directly across the street from the Geppi Museum. I keep reading that the Geppi Museum is out of the way, but quite clearly it isn’t.

The Geppi Museum is housed in Camden Station, a magnificent Italianate brick building with a soaring tower, which stands next to Baltimore’s famous baseball stadium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The central section of Camden Station was opened in 1852, and Abraham Lincoln visited the building on four occasions; the rest of the original building, including the tower, was completed in 1867. This was the terminal for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which continued to use Camden Station until 1971, by which time it was the oldest train terminal still in operation in a major American city. In the 1990s the building was restored to look as it had in 1867. In 2005 Sports Legends, a museum about the history of sports in Baltimore (the birthplace of Babe Ruth), opened on the first floor; Geppi’s Entertainment Museum opened the following year.

Entering through what I took to be the front of the building, I asked the folks at the Sports Legends admission desk where the Geppi Museum was, and was informed that its entrance is actually on the opposite side of the building. (Well, that seems appropriate: jocks and comics fans have separate entrances.) So I crossed to the other side of the lobby and ascended a staircase, past a handsome collection of vintage posters.

Then I found myself in the entrance hall for the Museum proper, whose walls were covered with even more impressive posters, my favorite being an enormous one for a Charlie Chaplin silent feature. Alongside one wall is a flatscreen TV monitor continuously running an introductory video narrated by Mr. Geppi himself, welcoming guests.

Here I was greeted by the museum’s curator, Dr. Arnold Blumberg. We had talked by phone in the past, but had never actually met until this year’s New york Comic Con. Knowing exactly what I most wanted to see, Dr. Blumberg escorted me into the museum’s largest gallery, the room titled “A Story in Four Colors.” He can doubtless attest to my reaction on entering this room, which must have involved bulging eyes and a dropping jaw.

Right in front of the room’s entrance stood a vitrine, a case with a glass top, holding beautifully preserved copies of Action Comics #1 (1938), the debut of Superman, complete with co-creator Joe Shuster’s iconic cover drawing of the Man of Steel lifting an automobile; Action Comics #2, which, though it now seems odd, does not have Superman on the cover; Adventure Comics #40 (1938), with the first appearance of DC’s original version of the Sandman, drawn on the cover by Creig Flessel; Adventure Comics #48 (1940), with the debut of the original Hourman; All-American Comics #16 (1940), in which the original Green Lantern first appeared; All-Star Comics #3 (1940), the initial saga of the Justice Society of America, the leading superhero team of the Golden Age of Comics of the 1940s; and two first issues that need no further description, Batman #1 (1940) and Captain America Comics #1 (1941).

I have seen Golden Age comic books before, and even own a few, and I have even seen copies of some of these particular landmark issues before. But to see them all together, all at once, is astonishing. And beyond the vitrine, there was a long wall lined with shelves, each filled with still more landmark issues of vintage comics. It was a treasure house! I was peering into the comics collector’s equivalent of Scrooge McDuck’s money bin, at the mother lode of this artform’s history, preserved within a single room!

Dr. Blumberg and I conversed for a while, comparing notes on our experiences teaching courses in comic books as literature, and discussing the obstacles and opportunities in persuading the culture at large that they should study comics just as people do with novels, plays and films. Eventually Dr. Blumberg had to leave for a scheduled meting, and as I faced the door to bid him goodbye, my eye was caught by a comic exhibited along another wall: Detective Comics #1 (1937), whose cover, drawn by Vin Sullivan, featured the face of the villainous Chin Lung, a ripoff of Dr. Fu Manchu! I ended up spending probably an entire hour in this room.

A wall text begins by quoting one of the Founding Fathers of modern comics, Will Eisner: “In the beginning, God made comics. . . .” Eisner was joking, but the quotation wittily sets the stage for the wall text’s version of the argument, familiar to comics scholars, that the comics artform has forebears going back to the prehistoric paintings on cave walls.

My friend and former comics editor Meloney Crawford Chadwick once pointed out to me a major reason why the mainstream culture still regarded comics with disdain. (This may seem a long time ago, but it was only in the 1990s that she told me this.) She observed that small children are considered to have grown more mature when they turn from reading illustrated storybooks to reading books with no pictures. Hence, comics enthusiasts are suspected of suffering from arrested intellectual development. The Geppi Museum wall text makes a similar point–“Although many people believe that reading words alone–prose lit–is a sign of intellectual maturity, the fact is that humans are a visual species. . . .”–and cites such early examples of sequential art (communication through a series of pictures) as the medieval Bayeux Tapestry.

The wall texts also explain Dr. Blumberg’s and the Overstreet Price Guide’s division of comics history into nine different “ages,” expanding upon comics fandom’s traditional concepts of the “Golden Age” of the late 1930s and 1940s, in which the superhero genre was created, and the “Silver Age” of the late 1950s and 1960s, in which superhero comics were resurrected (see “Comics in Context” #58). First there is the “Pioneer Age” (1500-1828), during which many of the elements of comics–word balloons, stories told in sequential panels–were being developed. It was during the “Victorian Age” (1828-1883) that Switzerland’s Rodophe Topffer created the earliest graphic novels. Next comes the “Platinum Age” (1883-1938) when the history of the American newspaper comic strip begins with such pioneers as Richard Outcault (The Yellow Kid, Buster Brown), many strips are reprinted in comic book format, and by the end of the period American comic books begin to feature original material. The “Golden Age” begins with the debut of Superman in 1938, leading to the explosive creation of scores of classic superheroes over the next several years. Superheroes faded from popularity in the second half of the 1940s and the Overstreet Guide characterizes 1946-1955 as the “Atom Age”: this appropriately gives the heyday of EC’s horror, science fiction, war and humor comics their own “age” in between the first and second superhero-dominated “ages.” The superhero genre was reborn in the “Silver Age” (1956-1970) starting with the introduction of a reconceived Flash in Showcase #4 (1956), followed by Stan Lee’s Marvel revolution of the 1960s. This is followed by the “Bronze Age” (1970-1984), the “Copper Age” (1984-1992, my own period of activity at the Big Two comics companies of DC and Marvel), and the current “Modern Age,” specified as beginning in 1992.

In our conversation Dr. Blumberg and I agreed that these divisions into “ages” are subject to critical reevaluation, and that it is difficult to perceive which “age” is currently going on around us. Thinking further about the subject, I suspect that Overstreet’s “Modern Age” should be broken in two, and that various factors, such as the ascension of Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada at Marvel, the great expansion of the graphic novel and comics trade paperback market, accelerated mainstream acceptance, the manga revolution, and the increasing importance of alternative comics make the early 21st century landscape of American comics very different from that of the 1990s.

Overstreet’s division of “ages” applies to American comic books, not to comics worldwide, or even to American comic strips, and the “Golden,” “Silver,” “Bronze” and “Copper” Age titles traditionally apply to superhero comic books. (It is an appealing idea that the “Silver Age” was also the first age of underground comix.) The dominance of manga in the American comics market, and the high profile that alternative graphic novels now have in the culture surely show that superhero comics can no longer be the primary standard for defining American comics history.

So the Geppi Museum’s system of Nine Ages of comics may require modification, but it is still quite useful. Moreover, it is striking that this division into nine ages has moved from the pages of a collector’s price guide into the context of a museum. Just as Dr. Peter Coogan’s book Superhero: The Secret History of a Genre, serves as a first major attempt at defining the superhero genre, the Nine Ages provide a helpful tool for academic analysis of the history of American comics.

It’s also striking to see that nearly a hundred percent of the objets d’art in this room are actual comic books. There is original comic book art, too: the cover artwork for various EC comics, as well as the original art for covers of the Overstreet Price Guides, by such notables as Alex Ross and Joe Kubert. In the case of the latter, the covers portray comics characters, but the guides, of course, are not actual comics. The vast majority of what is displayed in this room are actual printed copies of comic books. I was surprised that last year’s “Masters of American Comics” show at the Jewish and Newark Museums, which mostly displayed original artwork, included so many printed copies of comic books and newspaper comics pages. But of course this was a means of exhibiting work for which the originals are unavailable, such as Lyonel Feininger’s comic strips and Jack Kirby’s “Galactus trilogy.” When Ken Wong and I co-curated “Stan Lee: A Retrospective” at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, we similarly used photocopies of original artwork and even pages from reprint editions of 1960s comics when we could not obtain an actual original art page we would have liked to include. But in the case of both these museum shows, the main drawing card is the original art. At the Geppi, the printed comic book, the collectible, is the center of attention.

This reminds me of the question that New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman asked about “Masters of American Comics”: “The show includes one of Mr. [Will] Eisner’s drawings for a ‘splash,’ or title, page of his Spirit strip, and the printed version of it, each of which has its own aura, and raises the issue central to comic art: What is an original?”. After all, it was the printed version that Eisner meant for his audience to see; the original drawing was arguably just a tool in the creation of that printed page.

Back during the infamous comics speculator “boom” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the conventional “wisdom,” and I use that term ironically, was that various collectible comics would be worth big money someday. Now we begin to see that vintage comic books are potential museum pieces. Once I got to the Silver Age section of the “Story in Four Colors” gallery, I saw comic books on display that I have copies of in my own collection. It is now conceivable that I could exhibit forty-year-old comics that I own in a gallery at some point. Art museums court fine art collectors in the hope they will bequeath their paintings to them. I foresee the day when museum curators and librarians court comics aficionados with massive collections, like, say, Fred Hembeck, to donate them to their institutions. Imagine: the Fred Hembeck Collection at the New York Public Library. You may think I’m kidding. The New York Public Library holds an enormous collection of Charles Addams’ original cartoons (see “Comics in Context” #72) and has recently begun collecting comic books. Isn’t it possible that in decades to come they would be happy to acquire a major collection of comic books from the last half of the twentieth century?

Around the corner from the introductory wall text for the “Four Colors” room are examples of comics from the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Buster Brown, leading up to the aforementioned Detective Comics #1 from the close of the Platinum Age.

The vitrine with Action Comics #1 which I saw when I first entered the room marks the beginning of the Golden Age. Walking to the opposite side of the vitrine, I found even more landmark issues of that period: Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (1941); Detective Comics #27 (1939), with the first appearance of the Batman; Detective Comics #28 (1939), which, like Action #2, fails to feature its new star on the cover; Detective Comics #38 (1940), with the debut of Robin the Boy Wonder; Famous Funnies #1 (1934), said to be the first “true” comic book, published in the format that became standard for the industry; Flash Comics #1 (1940), and (if I remember correctly) Dell Comics’ Four Color (second series) #9 (1942) featuring “Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold,” with artwork by Carl Barks, launching his long career in Disney comics, and his writing partner at the Disney studio, Jack Hannah.

To my right was a walk with shelves packed with Big Little Books, tiny (3” by 4 1/2”) but thick illustrated books, published starting in 1932, many of which featured popular comic strip and animated cartoon characters of their time.

There were still more Golden Age comics in a case, including Marvel Comics #1 (1939), introducing the original Human Torch and featuring the Sub-Mariner, the first comic book from the company, Timely Comics, that would evolve into modern day Marvel; More Fun ComicsNew York World’s Fair Comics #2 (1940), featuring Superman, Batman and Robin on its cover (the first time Superman and Batman were shown together) standing in front of the architectural symbols of the 1939-1940 World’s Fair, the Trylon and Perisphere. #53 (1940) with the debut of the Spectre; and

The Golden Age collection continued in a bank of shelves along the wall, including Four ColorPatsy Walker #1 (1945) with its delightful cover portrait of its heroine, seated with her legs in the air, and Daredevil Battles Hitler (1941), starring the first costumed superhero to bear that name (DD, not Adolf!). I was especially pleased to see Superman #14 (1942), with its artist Fred Ray’s iconic patriotic cover image of Superman standing with an American bald eagle on his arm: I had seen the original art for this cover at “Superheroes: Good and Evil in American Comics,” an exhibit curated by Jerry Robinson at the Jewish Museum last fall. (first series) #16 (1941), in which “Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot,” his supervillain nemesis, as drawn by Floyd Gottfredson;

In the case of long rows of shelves such as these, I can only mention a handful of the comics I saw on display. There were many, many more, each bearing significance in the history of comics.

Next came an enormous set of shelves showcasing comics from the Silver Age, including Showcase #4 (1956) which inaugurated that period by successfully introducing a reconceived version of the Flash, one of DC’s leading Golden Age superheroes.

Mort Weisinger’s editorial reign over the Silver Age Superman family of comics was represented by such examples as Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #1 (1958) with its pre-feminist title; Adventure Comics #247 (1958), which introduced the Legion of Super-Heroes; and Action Comics #252 (1959), featuring the debut of Supergirl.

Here too were the Superman comics in which President John F. Kennedy played a significant role: Action Comics #309, which was cover-dated 1964, but, by an ominous coincidence, went on sale the month of his assassination, and Superman #170 (1964), with the tribute story “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy,” written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger and E. Nelson Bridwell. But the reason I remember issue #170 is its cover story, one of the weirdest of the Weisinger era, “If Lex Luthor Were Superman’s Father,” written by the Man of Steel’s co-creator Jerry Siegel, in which Luthor travels back in time to Krypton and nearly marries Superman’s future mother Lara!

DC’s most important and innovative Silver Age editor was the late Julius Schwartz (see “Comics in Context” #32), the man who started the Silver Age going with the new Flash. Among the comics on exhibit that represent his contributions are Brave and the Bold #28 (1960), the first appearance of the Justice League., memorably pitting them against the gargantuan alien starfish Starro the Conqueror, and Justice League of America #1 (1960). Here too was one of the first comics in the exhibit that I also own a copy of: Justice League of America #21 (1963), titled “Crisis on Earth-One,” inaugurating the celebrated team-ups of the Justice League with their forebears, the Justice Society. Similarly, the collection included Green Lantern #1 (1960), starring Schwartz’s Silver Age version of the character, and Green Lantern #40 (1965) in which the Golden Age and Silver Age Green Lanterns first teamed up. There too was Detective ComicsBatman villains: the Riddler in Batman #171 (1965) and the Scarecrow in issue 189 (1967). I was pleased to find Hawkman #1 (1964) and one of the 1966 Showcase issues in which Schwartz resurrected the Spectre, all with extraordinary cover art by Murphy Anderson. #359 (1966), in which Schwartz introduced the new version of Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, who would go on to co-star in the 1960s TV series. Also on display were two comics in which Schwartz revived two Golden Age

Speaking of Showcase, it was fun to find here unexpectedly Showcase #43 (1963), DC Comics’ adaptation of the first James Bond movie, Doctor No. It now seems strange that DC never did another Bond adaptation or an ongoing James Bond comics series, though certainly back then they would have had to clean it up considerably for young readers.

There were plenty of landmark Silver Age Marvel comics on exhibit as well. Among them was Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) the first appearance and origin of Spider-Man, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko; Lee and Jack Kirby’s The Incredible Hulk #1 (1962), with old Greenskin in his original gray color; Lee and Kirby’s X-Men #1 (1963), the initial appearance of Thor in Journey into Mystery #83 (1962), Iron Man’s debut in his clunky gray armor in Tales of Suspense #39 (1963) and his sleek red and gold battle armor in Iron Man #1 (1968), testifying to how rapidly Marvel’s look evolved in the 1960s; plus Jim Steranko’s Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #1 (1968). Here too was the return of Golden Age great Captain America in Lee and Kirby’s Avengers #4 (1964).

The great comics of the 1960s inspired a new wave of young comics writers and artists who sought to build on the Silver Age’s foundation and push the creative envelope in new directions. Thus began the Bronze Age, and among the scores of comics on display in this section is Green Lantern #76 (1970), in which writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams, under Julius Schwartz’s editorial aegis, shook up the superhero genre by introducing realistic social and issues. In another comic on exhibit from the same year, Conan the Barbarian #1, writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith expand mainstream comics’ reach into the realm of sword and sorcery, a genre that is decidedly not for the small children who were once comic books’ principal audience. Another sign that the audience was becoming older was the debut of that ruthless vigilante, the Punisher in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (1974), also on display.

With a relaxation of the Comics Code, DC and Marvel ventured into the horror genre, as the museum shows with Marvel’s Ghost Rider #1 (1973) and DC’s The Demon #1 (1972), one of the 1970s projects with which Golden and Silver Age veteran Jack Kirby became an innovator in yet a third age of comics. Nearby is DC’s House of Secrets #92 (1971), in which Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson introduced Swamp Thing, and Wrightson immortalized the young Louise Simonson by portraying her on the cover as the story’s heroine.

Here too is the cult classic from Charlton Comics, E-Man #1 (1973), blending humor and superheroics. Elsewhere in this section, you can see the following classic issues. Artist Mike Kaluta unveiled his definitive visual take on the title character of The Shadow #1 (1973). Julius Schwartz turned his prowess at updating classic superheroes to Superman himself with the famous “Kryptonite No More!” story in Superman #233 (1971). Schwartz turned to co-creator C. C. Beck to help revive the long dormant original Captain Marvel in Shazam #1 (1973), with the right touch of whimsy that no one has recaptured until Jeff Smith’s current series. Stan Lee briefly returned to comic books with the origin story in The Savage She-Hulk #1 (1980).

Through several Bronze Age comics on exhibit, you can follow the radical shift turn in fortune for the X-Men series, which had been canceled at the close of the Silver Age. First, you’ll see Wolverine’s debut as a guest star in The Incredible Hulk #181 (1974). The following year, Wolverine joined Storm, Nightcrawler and other new mutant heroes in Len Wein and Dave Cockrum’s relaunch of the series in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Keep looking through the Bronze Age section and you’ll find Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s classic Uncanny X-Men #137 (1980), with the death of Phoenix.

You’ll also find Daredevil #168 (1981), in which Frank Miller not only began writing the series as well as drawing it, but also introduced Elektra to the world. The Bronze Age concluded as Walter Simonson launched his run on Thor, the best since Lee and Kirby, with the creation of Beta Ray Bill in Thor #337 (1983), also on display.

When I look over my notes on particular issues I singled out from the Bronze Age displays, I am struck by how many of them contain the seeds of the major changes we are currently witnessing in the comics artform, and business. There are few graphic novels on exhibit at the Geppi Museum, but the Bronze Age section holds three of major historical importance. There’s Will Eisner’s A Contract with God (1978), the first modern graphic novel, the forebear of all that followed. Here too is the pioneering independent comics company Eclipse’s first graphic novel, Sabre (also in 1978!), by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy, and Marvel’s first venture into the new format, Jim Starlin’s memorable and gratifyingly adult 1982 Death of Captain MarvelShazam). The Big Two were clearly watching and adopting innovations from the new alternative comics companies that were popping up. Also on exhibit are Dave Sim’s pioneering indie comic Cerebus the Aardvark #1 (1977), Howard Chaykin’s political and sexual satire American FlaggCamelot 3000 (1982). (about Marvel’s version of the character, not to be confused with the Golden Age original in #1 (1983) from First Comics, and the first issue of DC’s first limited series produced specifically for the new, growing direct sales comics market, Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland’s Arthurian science fiction epic

At the far right end of the long wall with the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age displays are the issues in exhibit from the Copper Age. Among them are Jim Shooter’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 (1984), which launched the reign of the company-wide crossover blockbuster limited series, which still plagues us today with the likes of Infinite Crisis and Civil War. In retrospect Marvel’s flagship series may have jumped the shark with Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987), also on display. (Good heavens, Peter Parker and Mary Jane have been married for twenty years!) The Copper Age is also the age of the Grim and the Gritty, as evidenced by the exhibited copies of Batman #428 (1988), with the brutal murder of the second Robin, Jason Todd, and the even more ghastly demise of Supergirl in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 (1985). (Both deaths have recently been undone, but they were real enough for nearly two decades.) But among the Copper Age comics on the shelves are enduring classics, including Alan Moore’s Miracleman (1985), Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 (1986), John Byrne’s The Man of Steel #1 (1986), Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen #1 (1986), Moore and Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke (1988). From the vantage point of 2007, the mid-1980s now look to me like the high point of the evolution of the superhero genre in comics, which has subsequently slid into a dead end of Grim and Gritty shock effects and shark jumping.

There ae two doors leading from the museum’s main hallway. I entered through one, near the copy of Detective Comics #1, and I exited through the other, near the wall display of representative first issues of the Modern Age. I am surprised that the museum devotes little attention to graphic novels, underground comix and alternative comics, but Dan Clowes’ Ghost World #1 (2002) was on display in this section. I also found first issues of some recent favorites of mine: Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’s Marvels #1 (1994), Mark Waid and Ross’s Kingdom ComeBuffy the Vampire Slayer #1 (1998), and Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #1 (1999). #1 (1996),

So, to modify one of British comedienne Catherine Tate’s catchphrases: “Was I dazzled?” Oh, yes, indeed. It was as if the whole history of American mainstream comics had taken concrete form around me, flooding me with memories.

But, of course, I’m already an authority on comics history: I could put all these comics in context. Beneath each of the comics in these immense cases there is a line on the shelf explaining its significance, such as the first appearance of the Legion of Super Heroes. But what if you are like that young comics fan I encountered in San Diego last summer who had never heard of the Legion, whose most classic period, after all, was forty years ago? What if you are a casual visitor to the Geppi Museum, who may have seen some of the recent superhero movies, but knows little about comic books themselves? What would you then make of these hundreds upon hundreds of comics exhibited in this comprehensive gallery? These are questions I will explore further in my next installment.

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You can read Dr. Arnold Blumberg’s erudite report on our recent encounter and conversation in his column at the Geppi’s Entertainment Museum website.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR OTHER PEOPLE

In the course of the new documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, Mr. Eisner discusses what he calls his “favorite story” from The Spirit, “The Story of Gerhard Shnobble” (see “Comics in Context” #68), about a little man who had the talent to fly, although he died without anyone ever seeing him doing it. Eisner observes that this is about “people who go through life, do great things, have moments of glory no one knows about.”

Watching the documentary I realized, of course, “Gerhard Shnobble” is a parable about the creative artist whose talents go unrecognized by the world at large. Surely Eisner must have identified with Shnobble, back in the days not so long ago when comics were still regarded as a “gutter” medium.

Lately I’ve been writing about comics artists who made a great impact on the medium in the 1970s, but who had unjustly fallen from popularity by the time of their recent deaths. What is even sadder is the case of a creative artist of remarkable talent who, for one reason or another, never received the career or the level of recognition that he deserved. Such a man is Tom Artis, a comics artist whom I only met once, but whose work I admired, and who passed away this week. I recommend that you read his friend and collaborator Peter Gillis’s tribute to him, and then take a look at Artis’s work for yourself by doing a search on the Internet. Not enough people paid attention, but Tom Artis flew.

In Celebration of Crud: The Charlton Comics Story

My first introduction to Charlton Comics came as a Hanna-Barbera obsessed child. Nothing excited me more as a five year old than the prospect of watching some Pixie and Dixie, Top Cat, Dynomutt, or any piece of animation with a monotonous reoccurring background during a chase sequence. Charlton Comics eventually found itself with the contract to pump out comic books based on The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo to name a few, which had previously been the domain of Western Publishing (a group that put out comics under the Dell, Gold-Key Whitman monikers) and I was of course instantly drawn to drawings of my cartoon heroes in print form. and

You could be sure it was Charlton if Mr. Slate was only recognizable because someone referred to him as Mr. Slate. If Fred's coat was blue, if Wilma's hair was suddenly yellow, this must have been a Charlton comic. Accuracy and faithfulness to the original cartoon was definitely not high on Charlton's priority list, and this was enough to drive a young child (like me) plain mad. "WHY IS FRED FLINTSTONE'S JACKET BLUE!? IT'S NOT BLUE - IT'S RED! MOM! WHY IS FRED FLINTSTONE'S JACKET BLUE?!?" The artists and writers often took liberties with their interpretations of the licensed characters, sometimes going beyond just randomly changing the well-known color models that had been used for years. The Jetsons' robot maid, Rosie, was given white eyes and pupils instead of her standard robotic red buttons. In Charlton's version of Scooby-Doo the dog was constantly using thought bubbles to emulate his observations that his human counterparts could never decipher. It made little sense since in the Saturday morning cartoon he could speak.

Although there were plenty of comic book labels churning out poorly rendered crap while labels like Dell, EC, and National Periodical/DC received all the attention, no other peripheral comic group lasted as long as Charlton. The company was a cringe inducing comic book presence on newsstands for an incredible forty years, from nineteen forty-six to eighty-six. An impressive run for a company who's output was often unreadable.

CRIME!

1931 was the year that Charlton's future founder John Santangelo Sr. first entered the publishing world with a get-rich-quick scheme involving the reproduction of sheet music with the intent to sell. Unfortunately, it seemed that John was oblivious to copyright laws forbidding such reproduction. Over the next couple of years, Santangelo would find himself in the middle of an ongoing battle with ASCAP who was confronting him on his lack of business decorum. It seems to have had more to do with Santangelo's complete lack of legal savviness than a premeditated crime, but regardless he found himself serving all of 1934 in New Haven County Jail for copyright violation. After serving his time Santangelo got back into the industry, this time following the proper rules. He was joined by a defrocked lawyer named Edward Levy who had been serving time in the same prison as Santangelo due to some kind of political scandal and the two criminals went into business together. Perhaps, had the judiciary known what Santangelo was going to unleash on the publishing world legally for the next several decades... they may have preferred that he stick to copyright infringement. Even when Santangelo went legit, his product always looked bootleg.

During both the legal and illegal infancy of Charlton, Santangelo had been manufacturing his output with a second-hand printing press that had originally been used for printing cereal boxes. The company would pump out everything they did using this same creaky machine starting in 1931 right up until the end of their comic line in 1986 (an exception was when a hurricane almost destroyed it in 1955 and the printing duties had to be done elsewhere while things were repaired). The cereal press story is somewhat of a revelation for those who, as kids, could not understand why Charlton comics always looked so grainy and impoverished.

While still toiling in the profitable music publishing biz CharltonMarvels of Science attempted to disguise education as entertainment - it did not succeed beyond four issues. It educated very few about anything other than that there was a new crummy "educational" comic in town. Charlton struggled for a couple years trying to find characters and themes that would sell. In the early fifties they started amassing a catalogue of previously established players from other comic manufacturers who went under. In 1954, big time publishing outfit, Fawcett, got out of comic books and sold off their slightly popular titles Six Gun Heroes and Fawcett's Funny Animals. Charlton absorbed other small time companies like Capitol Comics and Toby Press. A company called Fox Feature Syndicate collapsed in 1948 and Charlton wound up with one of their flagship superheroes, a stupid but endurable fellow named The Blue Beetle. Charlton had tried a couple of superhero characters on its own but they were superhero-Fawcett-animal hybrids like Atomic Mouse and the unappetizingly named Magic Bunny. Much like a small town video store that changes hands and names over the course of several years, Charlton ended up with a bizarre mish-mash of weird, inferior obscurities and started hatching them out from their headquarters in the publishing hub known as Derby, Connecticut. The early fifties also saw Charlton jump on the horror and gore bandwagon that William M. Gaines' EC Comics had started. They released a book called The Thing! that The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide notes "[contains] excessive violence, severed heads, injury to eyes common." published its first official comic in 1946 (Santangelo had put out some funny animal comics the year before but under a different banner).

ROMANCE!

Starting a couple titles in 1950 and 1951 (Pictorial Love Stories, True Life Secrets), Charltonromance themed comic books, trying to capitalize on the success other companies were already enjoying. Along with countless generic titles, they attempted to inject life into the genre with oddities like the suspiciously titled Cowboy Love and the very interesting Negro Romances, both in 1955. Interest in romance titles eventually waned two decades later in the mid-seventies. Unlike the other comic book executives who knew when to concede to the changing tides and slash the majority of their romance lines, Charlton assumed they could survive buyer apathy by creating strange new romance innovations such as Haunted Love in which pretty little things fell in love with skeletons (ooh, kinky). Majors like DC went from having a plethora of romance items to just one or two. Teenage girls who depended on the abstinence-preaching advice page were left in the cold to fend for themselves... unless they switched to Charlton, of course. They stuck with romance titles right into the eighties (but who knows what effect Charlton's smudged ink and decrepit pages could have on a girl's complexion!). eventually smothered the market with

The one-page advice column was always randomly sandwiched somewhere within the hackneyed melodrama and dished out by any number of pseudonyms. DC's Young RomanceYoung Love, had a no-nonsense, particularly macho scribe shouting replies in a column titled "Marc - ON THE MAN'S SIDE!" The August 1972 edition of Charlton's Just Married has advice dispensed by "one of the leading authorities in the country," Dr. Harold Gluck (towards the end of the article his name becomes Dr. HHarold Gluck). Gluck's name popped up as a voice of authority in several low-budget crime, mystery, and romance pulps. Whatever the situation called for, Gluck suddenly had the qualifications - sometimes an expert on the criminal mind, sometimes on sex, sometimes on children. His name actually showed up most often in low-budget western magazines as a writer of dull script for fly-by-night publishers other than Charlton. It is likely his name became a running gag within the circles of underpaid, mostly anonymous writers of comics and pulp magazines. had "Laura Penn... Your Romance Reporter" answering the pervy inquiries. DC's last surviving title of teen lust,

STARS!

Maybe the only thing that made Charlton stand out from the rest of the low-budget publishing world was an inexplicable knack for landing the licensing rights of popular television shows and other well known entities. This started in the mid-fifties when Charlton landed the contract to adapt, first, the primitive TV sitcom My Little Margie, followed shortly by the fine radio chiller The Mysterious Traveler. Other early licensed characters were B-movie favorite Charlie Chan (who Charlton would rename Louie Lue after losing the official Chan contract - and no I don't mean it fell behind a filing cabinet - although that wouldn't surprise me), and the daily newspaper strip Brenda Starr.

Charlton took a brief hiatus from various pop-culture adaptations to focus on the red hot superhero craze that Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee were responsible for resurrecting. Once the fad cooled off somewhat, Charlton returned to the licensed product, becoming the very unlikely go-to label for popular television shows needing the comic book treatment. The titles often included bizarre attempts at comic-izing familiar human faces with awkward results. Television adaptations included The Partridge Family, The Bionic Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Hee-Haw, and Emergency!. Cartoons, comic strips, and various other popular figures they covered were Hanna-Barbera's Abbott and Costello cartoon, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Bullwinkle and Rocky (the billing liberally reversed from the show), The Phantom, Bobby Sherman, Ronald McDonald, Hong Kong Phooey, Huckleberry Hound, Magilla Gorilla, Top Cat, Speed Buggy, The Grape Ape, Quick Draw McDraw, Underdog, Valley of the Dinosaurs, Wheelie and The Chopper Bunch, Yogi Bear and a comic named The Best of MarmadukeFlintstones comic became the springboard for the individual titles Dino, Barney and Betty Rubble, (Teenage) Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, and The Great Gazoo. Who knew there was such a huge market for the bastardization of beloved characters? Well, apparently I wasn't as isolated in my toddler outrage as I initially thought. Hanna-Barbera had deals with several comic book publishers in other countries who also used the popular HB characters in comic form. These foreign licensees were rather upset with the "quality" of the CharltonCharlton dreck they were getting stuck with. It must have been hard for these companies, generally respected in their home countries, to justify peddling the off-model cartoon characters. Reader reaction likely had a great deal to do with this development and many new stories actually were crafted. which contrary to what you might guess, did not consist of thirty blank pages. Their prolific output would expand into spin-offs of existing titles. Their initial material they were sold to reprint. So much so that they started demanding that new stories with a bit more effort put into them be created to replace the

There is no question that Charlton often lucked out, what with being such a poverty case and all. Charlton made a killing with their line of Partridge Family comics that eventually branched off into a separate David Cassidy solo piece. Charlton knew a cash cow was to be made, and that the huge popularity of The Partridge Family wouldn't last forever. When flipping through a copy of the March 1973 issue of their comic, one is struck by the amount of advertisements for Partridge related junk. Every single ad in the comic is for some half-dash Partridge Family product slapped together by Charlton, ready to order from their Derby, Connecticut address. The inside front cover boasts an offer of five hundred(!) "David Cassidy Super Luv Stickers" for one dollar. Another ad uses drug terminology to shill a David Cassidy souvenir concert tour book. "Come One - Come All on the most exciting TRIP you've ever taken. Read a minute-by-minute account of what it's like to be David Cassidy on a fabulous tour." Two separate ads appear for "Susan Dey's Private Journal," which promises to include: "Susan's Success Formula: 10 Point Program For Popularity ... How To Make A Boy Like And Respect You ... Conversation Tips To Keep A Boy Interested ... The Do's And Dont's Of Wardrobe ... How To Look Your Best In Photographs ... Make Your Future Dreams Come True ... PLUS WHAT SUSAN'S LEARNED FROM DAVID CASSIDY!" I should note that any punctuation errors are exactly as they appear in the actual Charlton ads. The bottom of this ballyhoo screams, "HURRY! HURRY! This Book Will Change Your Life!"

Like so many comics of the golden, silver and bronze age, the advertisements that ran in Charlton have become as entertaining to read as the campy stories themselves. The July 1981 issue of Charlton Bullseye has an ad from New York's S/W Studios selling their "Masquerade Make-Up Kits" spelling out the different types of horrifying creatures you can easily turn yourself into including, "Clown, Monster, Disco, Indian, Chinese, and Black Face."

INNOVATION OR KNOCK-OFFS?

Throughout most of its run, Charlton rarely bothered with inconveniences like originality. Attempting to cash in on popular (and sometimes even completely unpopular) genres, CharltonCasper the Friendly Ghost became a publishing hit for Harvey Comics (and a cartoon star for Paramount), CharltonTimmy the Timid Ghost (to be fair, Stan Lee's somewhat more respectable group also hashed out something called Homer the Happy Ghost - with art by the legendary Dan DeCarlo). Charlton's classic shoddy approach to everything was on display when Timmy made his debut in, who knows why, Timmy the Timid Ghost number three. Charlton didn't bother with logic. churned out comic book equivalents of Sam Katzman drive-in pictures. After put out a childish and utterly retarded series in 1956 titled

Son of Vulcan was Charlton's 1965 attempt to profit from the success of the Marvel character Thor that was recently created by Jack Kirby. Writer Joe Gill, widely regarded as one of the most prolific writers in comic's history, conceived the majority of the Vulcan stories. Gill was the perfect Charlton employee, able to produce at assembly-line speed. Like Thor, the Vulcan character was based in tones of mythology with varying degrees of accuracy (but sold nicely).

Charlton was definitely the bottom rung in the comic world but it still managed to attract many notable writers and artists. This had less to do with any prestige involved and more to do with comic artists who needed work. Several young bucks straight out of art school found their first gig at Charlton before moving on to something better. Artist pay rates were never very good no matter where one worked during the era, and they were certainly among the lowest at Charlton. Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel scripted a pair of obscurities for the company in the early fifties that had titles that sounded like clandestine 1950s beefcake mags with names like Nature Boy and Mr. Muscles. We needn't recount the sad story of why he was reduced to working on these, as it is just too damn depressing. Another notable who had punched in on the CharltonCharlton before and after his pioneering Spiderman work (preferring the creative freedom at the budget outfit, instead of Stan Lee's stifling habit of taking credit for everything at Marvel) and even moved into a Derby rooming house for a spell. Former EC and Mad man Wally Wood plus future DC Comics and MarvelMany other artists who would become well-known in the industry worked in the Charlton trench at various points. Several fan sites can be found online devoted to Charlton's beloved-by-nerds superhero line and you can follow the links at the bottom of the page rather than have me rehash that story.
WAR! time clock was Steve Ditko, who would labor at bigwigs like Denny O'Neil, Dick Giordano and John Byrne also paid their dues here by barely getting paid.

EC Comics under the tutelage of Harvey Kurtzman certainly brought a fresh approach to war comics in the early fifties, offering stories far more complex than the usual 'good versus evil' story lines that permeated the genre. Kurtzman said he was tired of "glamorous war comics, the American soldier merrily killing buck-toothed yellow men with the butt of his rifle." The Kurtzman ideal, unfortunately, didn't seem to have much influence on the other comic book companies. Far into the nineteen seventies after an unprecedented period in which minorities were demanding equal rights and treatment, Charlton led the pack in glorifying jingoistic madness. Fightin' Marines had a September 1970 cover scream - "[In this issue] The Mightiest Jap of Them All!" which in the context of permissive WWII racism may have been somewhat more understandable, but appearing in the early seventies it's more shocking. The choice dialogue included in this issue includes, "If they don't git us more ammo, I'm gonna go over and kill me a few japs barefisted!" "Just because ya creamed that jap, skinny, don't go gittin any ideas about me!" "Come on, nip... I'm gonna make ya even uglier than ya were before!" It's unfair to state that Charlton was alone in pumping out these pieces of race-baiting trash. However, they were one of the few who continued with such overtly racist work during the last years of the Vietnam controversy. The incredible viciousness in the dialogue cited is the kind usually associated with comics thirty years earlier. Then again, Charlton's racist war comics were as much a result of overworked hacks needing to churn out uninspired material at an inhuman pace as much as anything else.

RANDOM WEIRDNESS!

Occasionally Charlton was involved in promotional publishing ventures. Co-founder of the San Diego Comic Convention and one time Charlton illustrator, Scott Shaw!, profiled the bizarre public service comic Popeye and Communications and Media Careers on his website. So-called educational comics are almost always bizarre when looked at today and this particular example pictured on the right was just one of fifteen in a series. Other titles Charlton put together for this run include Popeye and Health Careers, Popeye and Consumer and Homemaking Careers, Popeye and Public Service Careers (something Popeye probably knew about after hosting these PSA comic books) and Popeye and Agri-Business and Natural Resources Careers. Charlton also put together a Beetle Bailey comic for The Cerebral Palsy Association of Oakland, California for reasons that are none-too-clear. While the comics were going full-force, Charlton also dabbled in generic magazines. Wrestling, astrology, Wild West stories (paging Dr. Gluck!) and crossword mags were all quickly produced Charlton staples. Their most successful magazine was the long-running pop music resource Hit Parader.

Like most of these second-grade comic and magazine publishers, Charlton had their own Mad Magazine rip-off. Cracked Magazine proved that you could do a crummy version of Mad and actually succeed with it. Charlton started coming out with Sick (it apparently had a good run under a different publisher previously) which even featured an Alfred E. Newman look-a-like, that even stole "What? Me Worry?" by changing it to "Why try harder?" The nature of their comedy included spoofing Barney MillerBlarney Miller - zing! Take that Hal Linden! Sick lasted a remarkable four years and, like Cracked, sometimes featured actual Mad artists. by calling it

Perhaps the weirdest footnote in Charlton's history was written about in the one hundred and twelfth issue of The Comics Journal. Speaking about the notorious company in 1986 when it finally stopped printing comics (its last two magazines, Hit Parader and Country Song Round-Up kept going until Charlton finally died in 1991), the article stated that many of Charlton's business practices were typical of mob-run companies because it was a mob-run company. If that's true, well, no disrespect godfather, but the mob made some truly shitty comics.

RESPECT!

In the mid-seventies most Charlton comics started running an advertisement for The Charlton Bullseye - an Indianapolis based zine devoted to praising everything Charlton related and primarily the old superhero stuff. It was an interesting choice of name, having previously been the title of one of their funny animal books in the fifties (and revamped in the eighties). The advertisement stated, "What is BULLSEYE? It's a FANZINE dedicated ENTIRELY to CHARLTON COMICS! It's loaded with NEWS, INTERVIEWS with the people behind the comics, new ARTWORK and Charlton STORIES that have never been printed!" The magazine was put together by Charlton's fiercest (read: nerdiest) group of fans. They managed to get permission from Charlton to use all kinds of graphics owned by the company and to use several un-published superhero tales that were prepared for publication but never saw the light of day once the titles ceased. One of the stories was done by legendary illustrator Alex Toth.

Now years later, I never thought I'd see the day, but a group of extremely dedicated virgins are currently producing a fanzine dedicated to the cruddy world of Charlton with incredibly detailed minutiae. Charlton Spotlight is as pinpointed a piece of esoteria as you'll ever come across and is available in print format only.

CHARLTON LINKS OF NOTE

The Charlton Spotlight, an obsessive fanzine.
www.comics.org has an incredible database of Charlton Comics covers.
Scott Shaw!'s candidate for the most unusual Charlton comic.
The Charlton Empire - a swell history that elaborates on the early years in song publishing and the 1955 hurricane that destroyed much of Charlton's offices and artwork - article by Cooke and Irving.

Here is a list and profile of the Charlton superheroes.
Here's a very funny undressing of that bizarre educational Popeye series.
The Stupid Comicsromance comic genre. web page ridicules the

A Charlton Comics fan page.
Modest overview of some Charlton romance titles.
The Connecticut Historical Society: Charlton Comics History
Some Charlton superhero info.
Stupid Comics offers its opinion of Charlton's most sexist comic!

Children read kid’s comics

We always liked the All Ages Reads feature in Newsarama — actual kids reacing kids comings and giving their thoughts. This time they look at The Black Belt Club and Abadazad — I was particularly curious about the latter, because after a HUGE publicity push for it last year from Disney is kinda dropped off the grid entirely. :

I have several problems with the new format. First, there just isn’t enough of what made it great in the first place – comics. I counted 24 pages of comics out of the 144 pages in the first issue; if my calculator is to be trusted, that’s a tad over 16%. Second, the books are just too small. At roughly 8” by 5”, the books just aren’t big enough to do Ploog and Bell’s magnificent work justice. And because of the page frame that is supposed to look like we’re reading a book within a book, the comics are even smaller than they could have been. It looks like the pages were photocopied at a reduced percentage and they just don’t hold the same magic as the original at all. In addition, the text in the comic sections is so small that anyone over the age of 40 will have trouble reading it. Not that I’d know that from personal experience or anything.

These complaints aside, Abadazad is still high-quality literature and is recommended for readers of any age. It would make a great read-together book for younger kids and their parents. Abadazad definitely belongs in children’s libraries and could be used to great effect in classrooms – it’s a shining example of great storytelling.

Shelby says: I like that it’s in the form of a diary but she’s talking to you, too. The whole idea of the story is interesting because it’s different from everything else. I just like the idea that Kate goes to another world and the made-up characters in Abadazad are cool because they’re really different from the creatures on earth. The pictures are important because it explains some things that you can’t really do in words. Sometimes in books there are really good descriptions of characters so you can understand what they look like and you don’t need pictures, but in Abadazad it’s like impossible to describe some of them, so the artist has to draw them. The art has got a lot of color and that makes it look really good. Mostly kids who can read and their parents will like it.

Pajiba's Guide to What's Good For You / Seth Freilich

[Author’s Introductory Note:I just wanna warn you up front that this sumbitch is ridiculously long — I just couldn’t shut up as I was writing it. I’m talking over 9,000 words long. So just know what you’re getting into here, and if you do happen to read your way through the whole thing, don’t blame me when you realize doing so wasted away hours of your life.]

If you’ll indulge me, I’m going to step outside the bounds of my usual television realm for this Guide. I have always been, and likely always will be, both a nerd and a geek (for a clarification of the difference, please see our own Dan Carlson’s definition); sometimes of the “chic” variety, and sometimes of the “you’re ridiculous” variety. I’ve come to grips with this and fully accept it, as I’ve been this way for a long time. Exemplary evidence to prove the point: I was a massive band geek and theater fag in high school; I was a physics major in college, I’ve worked for NASA, and I still love math, physics and astrophysics; my all-time favorite book (which I’m not naming, only because I’ll probably give it a proper Pajiba discussion somewhere down the line) has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, which are “nerd book” awards; “Quantum Leap,” despite some obvious and glaring flaws, remains my all-time favorite TV show; I not only have a favorite physicist (Richard Feynman), but have more than once been engaged in serious colloquial debates about whether Newton or Einstein was the better physicist and more important to math, physics and science in general (I will always come down on the Newton side of that argument); and I have nerd art hanging on my walls, including an original cel from “The Simpsons,” reproductions of comic art, and two massive original painting/collages from a Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean graphic novel. Yes Mildred, I’m a grade-A geek.

But perhaps the biggest thing which allows me to be a card-carrying member of the nerd and geek club (aside from the fact that I have, honest to god, a laminated “Official Identification — Astrophysicist” card in my wallet) is that I’ve been a comic book collector for a long time (I’ve even been, twice, to the nerd haven and geek mecca that is the San Diego Comic-Con). I can remember buying my first comics when I was still living in Philly as a wee lad — my mother would send me to the corner store to buy her a pack of smokes, and she’d give me a little extra cash to pick up some comics from the lonely metal-spinny-rack standing in the store’s corner (as for why the store clerk allowed a six-year-old to buy smokes — well, that’s Philly for you). In my teen years, I gained access to the bank account with my Bar Mizvah money, despite my parents’ mandate that it was to remain “hands off,” and spent a vast amount on comic books. In my late-teen years, I used to make weekly treks to the local book store, purchasing one or two comics while stashing up to a dozen more in the back of my coat or in a book bag (sorry, Walden Books). And to this day, I still get a monthly catalogue from Westfield Comics, listing all the new comics that will be coming out, and always flip through to see what’s out there, although I don’t order or read nearly as much as I used to.

In fact, these days I’ve generally moved beyond loose comics, instead preferring to collect graphic novels (or trade paperbacks, or whatever the hell you want to call them). This is mainly for two reasons. First, my memory is utter shit. So by the time a new issue comes out, I’ve often forgotten the details of most of what happened in last month’s issue — and if the issues aren’t coming out every month, forget about it. So I much prefer to read my comics in one big chunk (and sometimes, after sampling something and knowing I’ll like it, I’ll wait until the entire run is out in trades before sitting down and digesting the whole thing). Second, it’s easier to keep and store the graphic novels. With comics, you generally need the long-white comic boxes, and if you really care about your comics, you have to put each one in a little baggy with a board behind it. It’s unwieldy, and there’s no way to make those comic boxes look good. While I have a few stashed away in a closet here, most of my comic boxes remain in the basement of my parents’ home. Graphic novels, however, can be displayed on a bookshelf, along with all my more “appropriate” reading materials, proudly advertising my geekdom to all who care (and because I’ve long ago given up on the notion of preserving them in pristine condition, I don’t care if this means they get a little beat up or get too much light or any such nonsense).

Now I don’t know where most of the Pajiba staff falls on the comics scale, although I do know that we at least cover both ends of the spectrum — I know Dan is at least sometimes a fan of the form, although not so much with the superheroes, and on the other side of things, I know that Dustin pretty much loathes all things comics. I suspect that the Pajiba readership similarly falls all over the place, and it’s with that in mind that I present this Guide.

In particular, I’m catering this discussion to those folks who generally wouldn’t touch a comic book for fear that it would shrink their sexuality and re-virginate them. My goal here is to discuss some comics/graphic novels that I think most Pajiba readers would enjoy, if only they gave themselves the opportunity. So this is not intended to be any “best of” list, although many of these frequently appear on such lists. If you generally trust my opinion and judgments (and how can you not, seeing as how I’m always right?!), go pick one of these up, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. And if not, well, that’s what the comments section is for. And similarly, feel free to add selections you think I’ve missed — I certainly haven’t read everything that’s out there, and I don’t read as much of the independent stuff as I would like, so many of my choices may tend more towards the “obvious” side, so I’m sure there are plenty of additions that can be made.

One last note before we get into this. Of the nine items on my list, some are collected in a single volume, but several are much longer series (and two of those series are still being written). In the case of the latter, I’ve recommended a single collected volume as a jumping-off point, and in all but one instance that recommendation is the first volume in the series. Although there’s one exception to all of this, which I’ll get to when I get to it.

5 Reasons Why Stand-Up Comics Make Better Copywriters

Darren Rowse, Major Domo of ProBlogger, is running a "Name Your Top 5" group writing exercise. The Top 5 could be about business, personal, a little bit of both, serious or silly. The current entries are a wonderfully eclectic collection of posts both informative AND entertaining.

Hmm, informative and entertaining. That's me all over. So I decided to add my 5 cents worth, too.

In a previous post or two, I've talked about my short professional foray into the seamy and unseemly world of stand-up comedy MANY moons ago as a bridge between college and the real world. I didn't know it then, but it did provide a great foundation for my move into direct marketing copywriting.

5 reasons why stand-up comics make better copywriters (in no particular order):

#1 - Comics know how to tell a good story: Whether delivering a set of jokes or a few long-form stories, comics learn how to structure the material and their delivery - timing, pacing, and rhythm - to get the maximum laughs from their effort.

#2 - Comics focus on results: No matter how funny something may seem to the comic, if the audience isn't laughing, it isn't funny. (And if only the band is laughing, you're really in trouble.)

#3 - Comics steal smart: Comics steal from each other all the time, but only from the best among them. Milton Berle (does anyone know who he is?) was famous for it as were/are others.

#4 - Comics always test: They test the material, the delivery and what works with which audiences. They're always tweaking, pushing to earn a better laugh.

#5 - Comics know how to tap into frustration, fear and anxiety and ultimately deliver relief: Although what makes people laugh is highly personal and subject to generational, cultural, ethnic/racial, gender, etc. influences, there are some basic truths about the human condition -- marriage/family, work/school -- that makes us all smile, laugh, and gives us great pause before the big laugh.

Now take another look at these reasons through the prism of a copywriter's eye. See? Same stuff transformed into a different medium. Ultimately, it's all about "delivering the goods for maximum effect."

With a little more time, I could probably write at least 5 more reasons, but I'll quit now. (Always leave your audience hungering for a little bit more :=)

Dark Horse Comics Signs New Film Deal

Thanks to adaptations like Sin City, 300 and the upcoming Hellboy sequel, Dark Horse Comics should be doing well with its back catalog sales. More publications will be adding extra funds to the company's bank account, too, as Dark Horse has just made a deal with Hyde Park Entertainment to bring other titles to the big screen. None of these new films will be as big as those previously mentioned -- they were produced and distributed by the big studios Dimension, Warner Bros. and Universal, respectively. Instead the deal specifies they will be medium-budget indies. The first adaptation announced is The Blackburne Covenant, which will be based on Fabian Nicieza's and Stefano Raffaele's graphic novel about a horror-fantasy novelist who has coincidentally and accidentally written a book about real events. Of course, the conspirators involved with the events are not happy about the exposure, and so they set out to kill the novelist.

It has been a long time since I read any Dark Horse titles, so I'm not sure what other films could come out of this deal, but I'm guessing that my favorite, Boris the Bear, will not be one of them. Could a modest-budget cover the costs of a Concrete film? And could Dark Horse make a live-action version of one of the Manga titles it licenses, preferably Gunsmith Cats? As for other titles, it seems there are already Rex Mundi and ArchEnemies movies in the works. I wonder what else would work as an independent film. Looking at Dark Horses' current best sellers, I've picked out the following two titles that sound like they'd make for good, cheaply produced features: City of Others, which features a hitman caught in the middle of a war between vampires and zombies; and The Secret, which is described as a coming-of-age mystery. Of course, I don't know if these comics are actually any good. Are there any Dark Horse fans out there with any better ideas?

MIGHTY MOOSE

Here's an amusing parody of Paul Terry's Mighty Mouse. The Super Rodent himself even makes an appearance! This is a "second generation parody". Mighty Mouse himself was a parody of Superman.

Theory: Parody- More Whack Comics

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 2 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about comics.



Today, we present more parodies from Whack comics... But first take a look at the picture above. It's an an early advertisement for the Joe Kubert School. 3D comics and movies were all the rage then. Television was beginning to cut into ticket sales at theaters, and producers were looking for a technical advantage over TV to give them an edge. But the fad quickly fizzled out. Movie audiences and comic book readers were more interested in the quality of the movies and comics than the number of dimensions. Today, DVDs and digital media downloading are cutting into the traditional media markets. Some producers are beating the drum for 3D again. Let's hope they realize soon that people are more interested in quality entertainment than formats.

The following story by Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer trumpets their publication of the world's first 3D comic book, Three Dimension Comics in 1953. Strangely enough, the comic this was published in, Whack wasn't in 3D!

Comics: Not just for laughs!

Every project has its own unique set of “opportunities”—also known as challenges. Many of these challenges relate not to the quality of our work, but rather to the communication of our ideas. Often in the course of design, you must communicate complicated concepts to a non-technical (and often uninterested) project sponsor, client, or stakeholder. So how do you capture their interest, get their understanding and buy-in, and finally move on?

A Real-Life “Opportunity”

I work as a user experience designer on an interactive team at a mid-sized strategic communications firm, Capstrat, based in Raleigh, NC. One recent web project presented our team the opportunity to communicate using comics. We were redesigning a family of more than 120 individual franchisee websites into one common web strategy, look and feel, and information architecture (IA). The challenge (“opportunity!”) was that governing umbrella organization had never enforced any kind of control over the web and the brand had been fractured by an inconsistent online user experience.

Our team was faced with getting consensus from a committee of more than 40 individuals, all with equal interest and many with their own motives. We knew getting buy-in from this hugely diverse group on the design for the new common web strategy and CMS was essential.

At the time, we were prepping for an international presentation where we would unveil new website designs, information flow, and shared CMS strategy. After the presentation, a Q&A session and formal vote were planned; the outcome would determine if and how proceeded with the project. We had some difficult concepts to communicate to a large audience in a limited amount of time. In just 30 minutes, we had to cover:

• The overall look and feel of the new websites


• How external users would move through the website to complete common scenarios


• How the site design would maintain brand and structure consistency when propagated out to more than 120 individual sites while still offering flexibility to accommodate each website’s individual needs


• How a non-technical administrator for each of the individual websites would engage and interact with a CMS to set up and maintain their site

We knew that presenting wireframes or flow diagrams to such a large group had the potential to be disastrous, but we also recognized that presenting flat visual design screenshots would leave too many unanswered questions. That’s when we considered the idea of using comics.

Why Comics?

Comics are becoming recognized as an effective means of communicating difficult concepts to diverse audiences—even in the most staid corporate environments and with the most serious topics.

In fact, in August 2006, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon released “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation,” an illustrated digest of the 9/11 Commission’s 586-page report. About their choice of the comic medium, they said, “In a culture that has become the most visually oriented in the history of humankind, comics retain the original concept of storytelling and remain a potent force of information.” It is the storytelling attribute of comics that allows them to strike an un-intimidating and familiar chord with many audiences, even when dealing with sobering topics such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Comics are effective not only because they are essentially narrative, but also because they are unpretentious, easy to follow, and accessible. Whereas a functional specification document uses words and often “tech speak” to communicate functionality, comics use pictures and interactions to get ideas across. Comic artist and Yahoo! staffer Kevin Cheng put it best, calling comics “the universal language.”

In contrast to many of the common tools of our trade (for example, use cases and process flows), the sequential nature of comic frames can communicate the progression of time (see image 1). Scott McCloud, author of “Understanding Comics,” notes that “creating meaning differences” in sequential comic frames is what transforms a series of separate illustrations into the “art of comics.”