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Post by profh0011 on Nov 7, 2021 22:02:48 GMT -5
In my own small, obscure way, I could kinda relate to that. At one point, my brother hit on the idea of doing "mini-comics" as "rough drafts", so you could focus on writing and not worry about finished art. Between January 1975 and August 1976, while in high school, I did SO MANY of them, after a year-and-a-half of non-stop writing, I suddenly reached a point where I "got good"!
This was right about the same time I really took note of Paul Gulacy casting real people in his art, and what I wound up doing was basing every character I'd do on real people (from real life or in films). With me, it wasn't just the art, it was the dialogue and speech-patterns. After awhile, you'd never mistake any one character for any other, they all became distinct individuals.
I pass that advice on to my best friend, that if you want to get good at anything, KEEP DOING IT.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 7, 2021 22:34:20 GMT -5
Monsters Unleashed #8 (October 1974) Frankenstein Monster: "Fever in the Freak House!" Pencils: Val Mayerik Inks: Val Mayerik Letters: Dave Hunt Grade: C The votes are in, and while most agree that Moench's first Frankenstein script two issues back wasn't very good, they still feel his writing style is a better fit for the franchise than the writers who came before, and they REALLY liked his B story: I don't know how legitimate these polls were, but there's a good chance this was the first real feedback Moench got on his writing from actual fans outside of the bullpen. Additionally, Don Glut, the friend who inadvertently launched Moench's career, also appears in this issue writing mere filler content, so you've got to wonder if this wasn't all a massive ego boost for Doug. the writing for this issue is far tighter than in the last one, but it still lacks so much of the pathos Moench elicited in his writing for the same monster in Frankenstein #12 last month. The plot is extremely simple, in which a deformed freak is gathering other deformed freaks (including the monster) to wage war on all beautiful people in the world, and the twist is really, really lame: Fortunately, we get some great art in this story. This page feels very Moench to me: (It's all about incremental progression and cinematic pacing)whereas this outstanding page was probably all Mayerik: (it doesn't really match anything we've seen in Moench stories previously)Considering how much love Moench has for the classic monster films, as well as his repeated claim that the entire reason he agreed to write Deathlok was that Buckler called it a modern-day Frankenstein, it's a little surprising that Moench isn't sinking his teeth more into this property. Perhaps he was waiting for these lower-selling titles to be cancelled at any given minute, while Shang-Chi, Deathlok, and Planet of the Apes weren't going anywhere. Gullivar Jones, Warrior of Mars: "A Martian Genesis!" Script: Doug Moench; Tony Isabella (plot) Pencils: George Pérez; Rich Buckler (breakdowns) Inks: Duffy Vohland; John Byrne; Bob Layton Letters: ? Grade: C It's not often that I stumble upon a Bronze Age Marvel property that I'd never heard of before, and yet this is the first I've ever learned of Gullivar Jones, a science fiction hero first written in 1905 who is a clear inspiration for the later John Carter. Apparently, he appeared in Creatures on the Loose #16-20 and then showed up in Monsters Unleashed #4, eight months prior to this issue. That doesn't seem to stop Moench from dropping us right into the action, as if we should understand everything that is already in progress: Come to think of it, Moench hasn't been doing much of anything in the way of recaps across his stories yet. Hard to remember he is still brand-spanking new at writing ongoing features, even though he has now been writing comics professionally for three years by this point. I wonder if he is the reason Jim Shooter will eventually demand that every issue of every Marvel comic be totally accessible to the new reader. Anyway, I digress. Dropping us into the middle of the action, no explanations offered, is actually pretty exciting and almost draws me into the story, but Moench's need to write Jones himself as an almost forcefully mundane ordinary Earthman gets obnoxious fast: Moench at least has a strong handle on this world and its characters: ...but that's likely the work of Tony Isabella, not Moench. One final unique thing about this story is how symmetrically the twist ending compliments the twist ending in Moench's lead story: The lead story, once again: I wonder if Moench even knew this story would be appearing in this book when he wrote it, though.
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Roquefort Raider
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 8, 2021 6:29:19 GMT -5
I wasn't aware that Gullivar Jones had been in any other title than Creatures on the loose. It's like when I learned that DC had published John Carter stories in Tarzan family as well as in Tarzan and Weird Worlds!
The art is not up to par with Gil Kane's or Gray Morrow's, but I'm still curious as to where this instalment is supposed to go. It looks like a done-in-one tale with no consequence for the overall series.
Now I crave some martian action!
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 8, 2021 8:11:44 GMT -5
I remember that a couple of issues later, the letters page actually apologized for the quality of the art in that Gullivar Jones story, which was apparently dashed together in a rush job by a trio including the still-quite-green Perez and Vohland. It's unquestionably amateurish by Marvel's standards of the time.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 8, 2021 8:13:59 GMT -5
I remember that a couple of issues later, the letters page actually apologized for the quality of the art in that Gullivar Jones story, which was apparently dashed together in a rush job by a trio including the still-quite-green Perez and Vohland. It's unquestionably amateurish by Marvel's standards of the time. Yeah, this one definitely felt a little "off". It's really just the inking and the empty backgrounds that suffer from it having been a rush job. The layouts, faces and bodies look mostly fine.
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Post by shaxper on Nov 8, 2021 8:56:38 GMT -5
I wasn't aware that Gullivar Jones had been in any other title than Creatures on the loose. It's like when I learned that DC had published John Carter stories in Tarzan family as well as in Tarzan and Weird Worlds! The art is not up to par with Gil Kane's or Gray Morrow's, but I'm still curious as to where this instalment is supposed to go. It looks like a done-in-one tale with no consequence for the overall series. Now I crave some martian action! Looks as if Lt. Jones was also in Monsters Unleashed #4, and that this was his final Marvel appearance.
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Post by MDG on Nov 8, 2021 10:09:49 GMT -5
I remember that a couple of issues later, the letters page actually apologized for the quality of the art in that Gullivar Jones story, which was apparently dashed together in a rush job by a trio including the still-quite-green Perez and Vohland. It's unquestionably amateurish by Marvel's standards of the time. Yeah, this one definitely felt a little "off". It's really just the inking and the empty backgrounds that suffer from it having been a rush job. The layouts, faces and bodies look mostly fine. My first exposure to Perez is a story he did in Hot Stuf' #1--very amateurish and not helped that the publishers wrote themselves into the story as characters. Bad enough in a fanzine, but this was a very slick, handsome book w/ pros like Corben and Bucler.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 8, 2021 10:26:11 GMT -5
Yeah, this one definitely felt a little "off". It's really just the inking and the empty backgrounds that suffer from it having been a rush job. The layouts, faces and bodies look mostly fine. My first exposure to Perez is a story he did in Hot Stuf' #1--very amateurish and not helped that the publishers wrote themselves into the story as characters. Bad enough in a fanzine, but this was a very slick, handsome book w/ pros like Corben and Bucler. Yup. That was published only four months earlier and also featured a Doug Moench story. Perez's stuff there suffers from the same lack of detail/linework, but less so than in Gullivar Jones.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Nov 8, 2021 13:20:39 GMT -5
It's not often that I stumble upon a Bronze Age Marvel property that I'd never heard of before, and yet this is the first I've ever learned of Gullivar Jones, a science fiction hero first written in 1905 who is a clear inspiration for the later John Carter. Apparently, he appeared as a backup feature in Creatures on the Loose #16-20 and then showed up in Monsters Unleashed #4, eight months prior to this issue. That doesn't seem to stop Moench from dropping us right into the action, as if we should understand everything that is already in progress: Gullivar Jones was the cover feature in Creatures on the Loose, and also appeared in COTL #21, which sported a nice Steranko cover. If Moench didn't plot this, it may have been pencilled or laid out before it was assigned to him, so the choice to start in the middle of the action was probably Tony Isabella's.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Nov 8, 2021 13:33:35 GMT -5
According to GCD, Gullivar Jones and John Carter both appeared in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen v2 #1 in 2002, and in a 2012 limited seties, Warriors of Mars, from Dynamite.
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 10, 2021 20:35:57 GMT -5
I remember that a couple of issues later, the letters page actually apologized for the quality of the art in that Gullivar Jones story, which was apparently dashed together in a rush job by a trio including the still-quite-green Perez and Vohland. It's unquestionably amateurish by Marvel's standards of the time.
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Post by MDG on Nov 11, 2021 9:32:45 GMT -5
I remember that a couple of issues later, the letters page actually apologized for the quality of the art in that Gullivar Jones story, which was apparently dashed together in a rush job by a trio including the still-quite-green Perez and Vohland. It's unquestionably amateurish by Marvel's standards of the time. That's a lot of words for the editor to avoid saying "I f*cked up."
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 11, 2021 10:29:46 GMT -5
That's a lot of words for the editor to avoid saying "I f*cked up." There seemed to be a lot of that in the Marvel magazines during this big expansion. Tons of turnover on writing and editing, and a few admissions of wrongdoing in those letters from the editor. It's either in issue #3 or #4 of Planet of the Apes where (I think) Tony Isabella will admit to erroneously crediting Gerry Conway with the concept and plot for Moench's lead feature. All Moench had been given were a few vague notes scrawled on a piece of paper.
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Post by profh0011 on Nov 11, 2021 11:38:38 GMT -5
Rich Buckler also had a bad habit. He tended to get on 4 series at the same time, and on a regular basis, blow deadlines on all of them at the same time. On FANTASTIC FOUR, often missing 2-3 months in a row as a result. At the time, I wished he would have focused on one book and gotten way ahead on that, before taking on additional projects. I read somewhere some freelancer say that you just "don't" turn down offers of work from editors, because if you do, next time they won't ask you. But I still think it's worse to say "yes" and then be partly responsible for the whole system getting screwed up when deadlines get blown. (There's a similar situation in the Home Care field. The "General Manager" of my office once reminded me, "Once you take on a case, IT'S YOURS, until we can find someone else to replace you." You can't "blow deadlines", so to speak, in this job. People's lives are depending on you! I've turned down a LOT of potential cases, until a "right" one opened up.) Now, I never read DEATHLOK-- but since that one series seemed more "personal" to Bucker (HE created it, after all-- in a better world, he would have OWNED it), I think he should have focused on that, and anything else would be just "extra" when he had spare time. One of his assistants, George Perez, wound up filling in on FANTASTIC FOUR when Bucker blew one deadline too many. "Ye editor" apparently saw it and liked what he saw. Next thing, Perez became the regular FF artist-- and Buckler was PISSED off about it! Perez, whose stuff was a lot more "fun" (when he wasn't doing hyper-violence), and who always had a habit of "contributing" to stories as much or more than most artists at the time, always managed to make ANY writer he worked with look better-- usually, better than they actually were. Personally, I would have much preferred if HE had focused on THE AVENGERS, not FANTASTIC FOUR. He was good on both books, but I liked his AVENGERS more. Unfortunately, Perez picked up that bad habit from Buckler-- or getting on 4 series at once and eventually blowing deadlines on all of them, then missing multiple issues in a row before coming back. At one point, Perez wound up blowing ONE deadline too many-- and somebody decided to FIRE him right out of Marvel entirely! He wound up at DC, where he decided to rebuild his rep. I remember when he debuted on JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA-- starting with the 2nd part of a 3-part JLA-JSA-NEW GODS crossover. Dick Dillin-- who actually did more issues of JLA than Mike Sekowsky had-- PASSED AWAY suddenly after finishing part 1. What a place to come in. I fondly remember the day Perez made an appearance at my comics shop, right around this time, and was talking about a new project he was doing with Marv Wolfman, which he kept referring to as " TITANS". For some reason, it took me a while before I realized what he was talking about. DC editorial preferred if they kept the name TEEN TITANS, and they compromised on THE NEW TEEN TITANS. Before long, Perez realized he needed to focus on ONE book or the other, so as not to repeat what happened at Marvel. After ONE fill-in (by Curt Swan!!), Perez decided to focus on TITANS... and before long, got 6 months ahead of schedule, and was able to do a 4-issue TITANS mini-series without any worries at all. The amazing thing-- aside from this-- as good as he'd gotten before, his work CONTINUED to evolve and improve at DC. It was a wonderful thing to watch as it was happening.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 13, 2021 16:53:46 GMT -5
Now, I never read DEATHLOK-- but since that one series seemed more "personal" to Bucker (HE created it, after all-- in a better world, he would have OWNED it) Moench has weighed in on this one quite a bit. His take is that the basic concept of a half robot, half human hero was Buckler's, as was the visual look, but the characterization, backstory, and (most importantly) the way in which the computer and the human intersected to form a personality at war with itself, was done by the two of them together. He thus considers himself a co-creator, even while also seeing the character as Buckler's.
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