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Post by MWGallaher on Oct 11, 2016 9:54:47 GMT -5
Creatures on the Loose #30 "Full Moon, Dark Fear" pencils: George Tuska inks: Vince Colletta editor: Roy Thomas grade: C+ Doug Moench's first fully original script for a mainstream comic book, though Moench still finds himself under considerable restrictions here. In his own words: (Source: "Doug Moench Talks WEREWOLF BY NIGHT." Comicmonsters.com. Horror Comic Book News, 19 Jan. 2009. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.) We certainly see Moench struggle with this imposition, having Jameson give his son meaningless pep-talks and make paltry attempts to disrupt the investigation of the detective tailing the Man-Wolf, but ultimately, his two scenes in this story have to be meaningless and without consequence. Perhaps more disruptive, though, are other restrictions that inevitably shaped this story. ... and without the right to do anything significant with J. Jonah Jameson, all Moench has to offer us is this visual climax (which Colletta-inked Tuska art fails to do justice) in an otherwise lackluster tale. Well, the series was originally promoted as " J. Jonah Jameson Presents My Son the Man-Wolf!"
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lyron
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Post by lyron on Oct 11, 2016 18:18:39 GMT -5
Hiya, Classics fans! According to the actual author of the Creatures On The Loose run, Doug's misremembered launching John Jameson into the space station adventures. Those issues were done by David Anthony Kraft! Doug wrote a lot of things at the time, but not those stories. He may have thought the idea was cool, but the space station stuff happens after Perez - and Kraft- come on board. Believe me, ask DAK (via the Comics Interview site, if you like). Keep howlin'! Creatures on the Loose #30 "Full Moon, Dark Fear" pencils: George Tuska inks: Vince Colletta editor: Roy Thomas grade: C+ Doug Moench's first fully original script for a mainstream comic book, though Moench still finds himself under considerable restrictions here. In his own words: (Source: "Doug Moench Talks WEREWOLF BY NIGHT." Comicmonsters.com. Horror Comic Book News, 19 Jan. 2009. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.) We certainly see Moench struggle with this imposition, having Jameson give his son meaningless pep-talks and make paltry attempts to disrupt the investigation of the detective tailing the Man-Wolf, but ultimately, his two scenes in this story have to be meaningless and without consequence. Perhaps more disruptive, though, are other restrictions that inevitably shaped this story. ... and without the right to do anything significant with J. Jonah Jameson, all Moench has to offer us is this visual climax (which Colletta-inked Tuska art fails to do justice) in an otherwise lackluster tale. Well, the series was originally promoted as " J. Jonah Jameson Presents My Son the Man-Wolf!"
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 11, 2016 19:27:06 GMT -5
Doug wrote a lot of things at the time, but not those stories. He may have thought the idea was cool, but the space station stuff happens after Perez - and Kraft- come on board. Believe me, ask DAK (via the Comics Interview site, if you like). Thanks for the clarification. DAK himself accused Doug of being a liar when the link to that review was shared with a facebook group. I suppose what Doug is claiming is that the idea for those stories was his, even if he wasn't the one who ended up writing them. Whether that's true, false, or the product of foggy memories I won't pretend to know. History, I suppose, is on DAK's side with this. I'm not aware of Moench being a liar or a credit-taker otherwise, but I've certainly caught a few of his mis-rememberings as I've combed through research for this thread. I suspect that's true of most creators, answering questions on the fly about a multitude of works created in a flurry of deadlines over the course of several decades. Not apologizing for Moench if he's taken credit for someone else's work. Just explaining that this may not have been done with a sinister intent.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 12, 2016 14:12:15 GMT -5
More About Moench, Man-Wolf, and issues of who did whatWell I never expected my review of Creatures on the Loose #30 to stir the level of controversy we're now seeing on the facebook page. Concerned about all of this, I did a little more investigating into Moench material and found this additional comment about Man-Wolf made in a different interview: (Source: Cooke, Jon. "Doug Moench's Memories." Comic Book Artist Collection. Vol. 3. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2005. 22-36. Print.) Moench wrote two issues of that run. The remaining six were written by David Kraft. Thus, Moench isn't taking credit for the idea for this run; he's actually mis-remembering himself as its author. Perhaps that's a credit to author David Kraft that Moench read his issues and liked them enough to mis-remember them as having been his own. I have to think that if Moench were trying to take credit for Kraft's ideas, he would have been a little more convincing about it and not created a lie that any fan of the series could easily disprove. And, If I'd known that the later Man-Wolf stories, written by a different author, went in the exact direction Moench described, I certainly would have noted as much. Whatever the case, I apologize for my part in perpetuating an untruth, and I think it's safe to see this blatant inaccuracy as unintentional on Moench's part.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 26, 2016 9:49:08 GMT -5
So much happening that you just had to read it over and over waiting for the next issue as each time you will find something new to latch onto. I've been giving this comment a lot of thought, especially as I have found myself compelled to return to Astonishing Tales #25 on two occasions since reviewing it two weeks back. The images tell every bit as much of the story as the words; I've never seen anything quite like it. It reminds me a bit of Kirby or Moebius, but in an entirely different way. Such a shame Moench and Buckler didn't collaborate more. Did I hear that they are not on good terms these days??
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 26, 2016 18:11:03 GMT -5
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu vs. Master of Kung Fu Fans of Shang Chi have often noted that, while Moench's work on Master of Kung Fu is arguably one of the best runs in comicdom, Moench's work with the same character here, in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, proves entirely unremarkable, even though both series were published simultaneously. How do we explain such a drastic difference in quality? I think the answer is simple. Much as with Moench's first work on Frankenstein (in Monsters Unleashed), the first Deadly Hands script is likely assigned to Moench as a one-time fill-in while creative teams were shuffled around, and he was only assigned to take the lead on the series after the first story was already completed. After that, Master of Kung Fu #20 leaves Shang-Chi stranded in the Flordia Everglades and, while he ends up back in New York only two issues later, the next eight issues of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu still have Shang-Chi slowly making his way back from Florida on foot (and, eventually, ending up in California) only to magically have him back in New York with Deadly hands of Kung-Fu #12. My conclusion: The Shang-Chi scripts for Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #3-11 were written all in one stretch prior to Moench writing Master of Kung Fu #22 two months from now. Moench, already having established that he could work in Marvel's bullpen by day while also doing work-for-hire by night, continued this arrangement with Marvel, writing color comics for them in the bullpen and taking on black and white feature assignments for work-for-hire pay, churning out entire runs in the span of weeks. It explains why Master of Kung Fu continues to evolve artistically while Deadly Hands of Kung Fu never seems to progress along with it. To quote Moench: (Source: Cooke, Jon. "Doug Moench's Memories." Comic Book Artist Collection. Vol. 3. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2005. 22-36. Print.) So Moench was churning out as much work-for-hire as he could, much as he did while freelancing, and Deadly Hands of Kung Fu may have proven to be a casualty of this in its first 11 issues. After that point, who knows? Maybe Moench wrote the remainder of the stories in one stretch a month after MoKF #22, at a point in which Shang Chi was back in NY, but where Moench still hadn't quite hit his stride with the series yet.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 26, 2016 19:34:24 GMT -5
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #3 "Web of Bleeding Vipers!" pencils: Paul Gulacy inks: Al Milgram grade: C- Moench's first work on Shang-Chi, and, much as with Monsters Unleashed, it seems likely that this was assigned as a rush filler job, Moench having no idea that he'd be receiving full creative control over the character/franchise soon afterwards. It's tempting to get excited about this first collaboration with Paul Gulacy, the artist with whom Moench would eventually be most associated, but if my theory is correct, then this (and possibly all of Moench's b/w features) were written at home in the wee hours of the night and then later assigned to an artist. It's unlikely Moench and Gulacy had any contact or collaboration for this story. And it isn't much of a story. While Moench grew up with a love for all kinds of comics: humor, adventure, war, horror, and superheroes, and while he was a massive fan of late night horror reruns, he had no familiarity with, nor interest in, the Kung Fu genre (1), and that makes for an awkward first outing. As I've argued extensively in this thread, Moench was a visual writer who often conceived of one visual premise around which to build a story, and whereas one would expect that visual premise to be action-intensive in a martial arts comic, it instead appears to be a spider within a van, symbolizing freedom vs. captivity: It's...interesting. Almost deep, though far too labored. So I guess Moench figured Martial Arts fans were attracted to the Eastern Philosophy/spiritulaity component of Kung Fu, and not the more obvious dimension. Whatever the case, this is the first time we see Moench get truly introspective with a character, even if Shang-Chi under Jim Starlin was a pretty simplistic character intentionally lacking in self awareness, as he was on a journey of self-discovery. Moench missed that, somehow, and labors intensely and repetitively over Shang-Chi's philosophical views of the events surrounding him: It is often obnoxious and semi-nonsensical. Still, it marks the beginning of a new approach for Moench: a more character-intensive approach to writing. Many of Moench's later protagonists will be similarly introspective, but the quality of their contemplations will grow stronger, more restrained, and less obnoxious with time and practice. Plot synopsis: Shang-Chi is visiting China Town in an attempt to reconnect with his past but is vastly disappointed, he stumbles upon thugs abducting a fleeing woman and intercedes, only to get captured by them when they hold a knife to her throat, but Shang-Chi is able to escape and rescue the woman, killing the thugs and their leader; the woman explains her name is Linda Fong and that her would-be murderer was her own father, The Adder, a drug lord that she had just uncovered and had fled in horror, so Shang-Chi appears to find connection with her in that they both learned terrible things about their fathers and felt the need to oppose them, leaving Shang-Chi to decide that "the past is best...forgotten"
Note: I reviewed this issue from the standpoint of Shang-Chi continuity here a long while back as part of my Master of Kung Fu from the Beginning thread. (1) Source: Cooke, Jon. "Doug Moench's Memories." Comic Book Artist Collection. Vol. 3. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2005. 22-36. Print
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Post by rom on Oct 26, 2016 21:45:45 GMT -5
Good stuff here - Thanks for the scans. I've never read DHOKF - I was never into collecting many of the Marvel mags. back in the day, and also Deadly Hands was pretty much before my time. I did pre-order the DHOKF Omni that's coming out this Fall & am looking forward to reading this.
However, I know it won't hold a candle to the MOKF series; I am really enjoying the 2 MOKF Omnis that have come out so far; the stories are great, and the color really "pops" - very nice visuals here. I'm much more of a color comic book fan anyway, though I do admit that b&w comics can look decent - I do feel that SSOC & the b&w Planet of the Apes magazines looked stellar.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 27, 2016 7:18:08 GMT -5
Good stuff here - Thanks for the scans. I've never read DHOKF - I was never into collecting many of the Marvel mags. back in the day, and also Deadly Hands was pretty much before my time. I did pre-order the DHOKF Omni that's coming out this Fall & am looking forward to reading this. Of all the Marvel b/w magazines, this is one I would never expect to warrant an omnibus edition. Is it reprinting the non Shang-Chi features as well? I am a huge fan of the Marvel b/w magazines. Deadly Hands and Doc Savage are the only ones that never really impressed me. Planet of the Apes, Dracula Lives!, and Haunt of Horrors were probably my favorites.
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Post by rom on Oct 27, 2016 12:41:15 GMT -5
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 2, 2016 19:06:34 GMT -5
Vampire Tales #6 "Blood Death" art: Alfredo Alcala my grade: B It remains fun to remember how these black and white B-stories were written. All Moench had to do was provide a title for a horror story in order to receive advance payment from Marvel with the promise that he'd write the story later. Thus, when a title is called "Blood Death." you know Moench had no idea what this would be -- it's as generic a filler title as you can get. The story itself isn't bad, but, like much of the other work-for-hire stories Moench churned out in his first weeks at Marvel, it relies almost entirely upon those Pre-Code style unexpected twists and little else. In this case, an anti-hero character is actually wishing to be bitten by a vampire so that he can escape his mundane existence and live forever. He tells his wife to kiss-off, looks up a real-life vampire living in a shabby apartment, gets his kiss of death, and then gets an unexpected twist in an otherwise perfect plan: If the idea of a protagonist actually seeking to become a vampire sounds original to you, it's not. Moench essentially recycled this from "Everlasting Mortality" (published two years earlier). The major difference is the means of the final twist: in the original story, the newly made vampire was destroyed by the cross on his tombstone. However, Moench has been using crosses as a means of unexpectedly killing his vampires A LOT as of late, and so this and the next story explore other unusual means of defeating them. "The Color of Crimson Gold" art by: Vicente Alcazar my grade: B+ This feels like the marriage of two different concepts: a beggar who sells a treasure map to fools, knowing it leads to vampires who will eat the victim, pay the beggar for his work, and then return the map to him so that he can do it all over again, and the visual premise of using arrows to kill vampires because they are essentially just like wooden stakes. As a result, we get the story of a gypsy (who a beggar tries to trick into being ambushed by vampires) summoning his tribe to take down the beggar and the vampires together. Despite the story's several weaknesses (especially the generic nature of the protagonist), watching a mob of vampires get massacred by the humans for once proves immensely gratifying. You almost begin to feel bad for them. The story than attempts to drive home an important message about our treatment towards immigrants when the gypsies who just saved a village from vampires is burned to death after being blamed for the crimes of the monsters they just defeated, but it all somehow manages to fall flat. Like so many of Moench's late night work-for-hire scripts, this story feels rushed an in need of another few drafts, but that vampire massacre alone made it tremendously worthwhile all the same.
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 4, 2016 17:11:25 GMT -5
shaxper, Roy Thomas needs you. I've already sent him the URL for this thread.
Begging time again... though as usual paying off with all the fanzines you can eat. Doing a Doug Moench interview (mostly up through the mid-70s) for ALTER EGO #146, out next April, and could use (along with Marvel stuff I most have accounted for) art from the following material written by Doug back in the day: Skywald stories (PSYCHO and NIGHTMARE) DC - he did a few back then for HOUSE OF MYSTERY and/or HOUSE OF SECRETS Warren - did a number, including the first 2-3 "Spook" stories in, I think, EERIE... also other, non-character stories, of course (Also need splash of a story written by Bill Dubay with the title "Spearchucker Spade," because Doug and interviewer Richard Arndt discuss it) CREEPY #54 - "The Slipped Mickey Click Flip" A Corben-drawn story, "The Last Spark of High Heeled Noise" Not that I'm not open to other things you may run across that aren't specifically mentioned in the interview... Thanks for listening! Roy
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 4, 2016 17:26:38 GMT -5
shaxper, Roy Thomas needs you. I've already sent him the URL for this thread.
Begging time again... though as usual paying off with all the fanzines you can eat. Doing a Doug Moench interview (mostly up through the mid-70s) for ALTER EGO #146, out next April, and could use (along with Marvel stuff I most have accounted for) art from the following material written by Doug back in the day: Skywald stories (PSYCHO and NIGHTMARE) DC - he did a few back then for HOUSE OF MYSTERY and/or HOUSE OF SECRETS Warren - did a number, including the first 2-3 "Spook" stories in, I think, EERIE... also other, non-character stories, of course (Also need splash of a story written by Bill Dubay with the title "Spearchucker Spade," because Doug and interviewer Richard Arndt discuss it) CREEPY #54 - "The Slipped Mickey Click Flip" A Corben-drawn story, "The Last Spark of High Heeled Noise" Not that I'm not open to other things you may run across that aren't specifically mentioned in the interview... Thanks for listening! Roy Only problem is I don't have a scanner. All my images are snapped with a low quality digital camera. Really wish I could be of help here. Heck, wish I could give the interview
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 4, 2016 17:29:46 GMT -5
shaxper, Roy Thomas needs you. I've already sent him the URL for this thread. Only problem is I don't have a scanner. All my images are snapped with a low quality digital camera. Really wish I could be of help here. Heck, wish I could give the interview A low-quality image is better than no image. Write to Roy, tell him what you have and let him decide whether to use it.
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 4, 2016 17:55:19 GMT -5
shaxper - Roy wrote back to me: "Hi Rob-- Thanks. This will help me get started, at least... the guy's done a pretty thorough job. Best wishes, Roy"
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