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Post by benday-dot on Mar 5, 2015 20:25:20 GMT -5
I don't know. Wikipedia implies that he did the Warren stories after arriving in the US, but the Skywald book says he went to them on his first day in New York. We'll have to wait until someone publishes a definitive biography. Given that we haven't even gotten a definitive biography of Jack Kirby that could be a very long wait. Yeah... not saying whether or not Marcos deserves it (hell, I'd read it), but the day we get the definitive Pablo Marcos biography hitting bookstore shelves will be the day when nothing is left undone. |
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Post by shaxper on Apr 10, 2015 19:51:53 GMT -5
"The Story Behind 'Stake in the Game'" (from Eerie #40, June 1972) For reasons I don't pretend to understand, Moench has a lengthy explanation printed in the letter column for Eerie #40, explaining why he wrote "Stake in the Game" (Eerie #38). One might assume it was in defense of some criticism, but the story is (contrary to my own opinion) almost universally praised in the letters here. Perhaps it's simply the fact that it was an unusually long piece, taking up a full third of the issue, and thus prompting more attention and interest from the fans. What appeared in the letter column: I can't say reading that contributed anything to my appreciation of the story, though I get the double-meaning of the title now (naming stories, I maintain, is still a weakness of Moench's). What I do find interesting about this little tidbit in the letter column is two-fold: 1. Moench is referred to as a "veteran writer" for Warren. He'd only been a regular contributor for them for eight months now, but apparently he'd "arrived," and giving him this space to further elaborate upon a story that he was already allotted an unprecedented 21 pages to write further suggests that he was hardly being treated as the new guy or the bum freelancer by this point. 2. Moench got to choose the 21 page length for the story? Wow. And Warren obliged him? I'd naturally assumed he was assigned a set page length within which to work. |
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Post by shaxper on Apr 11, 2015 12:20:33 GMT -5
"The Story Behind the Story ' Quavering Shadows'" (from Vampirella #17, June 1972) Once more, Doug Moench is inexplicably given a section of the letter column to provide the story behind an extra long feature he wrote that ran two issues earlier (this time in Vampirella #15). And yet, whereas the last write up simply took a section of the letter column, this one gets a giant colored box right smack in the middle of the letter page AND continues onto another page of the story. Warren is REALLY pulling out the red carpet for Moench right now. What's the story there? Even I, arguably one of Moench's biggest fans, would never attempt to argue objectively that his work for Warren at this point had consistently been the cream of their crop. The Story Behind the Story feature does continue after this with other writers. The article: Well what the heck was that? An overly long, opaquely worded lecture on the comic book medium that, ultimately, says little more than "the writer and artist are both important," only with $20 words. And yet, if you compare it to the "Story Behind the Story" Doug wrote in this month's issue of Eerie (see above), that piece was written in highly accessible language. So what gives? I see three possibilities: 1. Moench is every bit as pretentious and full of himself as his detractors had stated. This, of course, does not fit with what we know of Moench otherwise: a creator who almost never tooted his own horn, was humble and self-deprecating to a fault (even in the article in question), and who often gave more credit than was even due to the person he collaborated with (note: Moench makes absolutely no mention of providing layouts when discussing Bea's contributions as artist. He gives him full credit for the visuals and himself only credit for the words). 2. Moench can't help writing like that. But again, he didn't in the previous article. 3. Moench has an odd sense of humor. We've seen this before and will continue to see it throughout his career. His humor is incredibly awkward and very hard to get (such as with the dual meaning of the title "Stake in the Game" explained in the previous article). This is his writing at the absolute most hammed up, and he even mentions that he won't consult a dictionary, all in an article written in response to folks accusing him of being pretentious and the author of a thesaurus. I don't know whether he intended for the 17 year olds reading this to get what he was doing, but it's actually quite hilarious when you consider it. I'm still not sure what the purpose of these Stories Behind the Stories were, nor whether they'd been Moench's idea or the editor's (note: J.R. Cochran just took over as associate editor; that could be the explanation), but it's nice, at least, to see Moench having fun with it this time. I do find it hard to accept that Moench consciously turned on that eloquent writing style in "Quavering Shadows" though. It felt VERY stream of consciousness to me. |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Apr 11, 2015 12:36:49 GMT -5
This is also the exact premise of 1951's "The Reluctant Vampire" from Vault of Horror #20 (EC). It was later adapted for the HBO series in the 90s and starred Malcolm McDowell. |
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Post by shaxper on Apr 11, 2015 12:38:47 GMT -5
This is also the exact premise of 1951's "The Reluctant Vampire" from Vault of Horror #20 (EC). Considering that Moench was only three when that story saw print, it's unlikely he was aware of it (unless it was reprinted later on), but it's certainly not a story bursting with creativity in any case, and Moench clearly enjoys borrowing from his Atom Age Horror predecessors in other respects, so I wouldn't exactly put it past him to have recycled this idea. |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Apr 11, 2015 13:02:22 GMT -5
Considering that Moench was only three when that story saw print, it's unlikely he was aware of it (unless it was reprinted later on), but it's certainly not a story bursting with creativity in any case, and Moench clearly enjoys borrowing from his Atom Age Horror predecessors in other respects, so I wouldn't exactly put it past him to have recycled this idea. Oh, sure. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if Gaines and Feldstein had lifted the idea from an episode of "Lights Out" or "The Witch's Tale." The idea of a vampire working at a blood bank seems fairly obvious in any case. I just thought it was an interesting aside. EC was experiencing something of a revival in the early 70s. If Moench was unaware of their output, even at this early stage of his career, I would be very surprised.  |
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Post by shaxper on Apr 11, 2015 14:45:02 GMT -5
EC was experiencing something of a revival in the early 70s. If Moench was unaware of their output, even at this early stage of his career, I would be very surprised. Oh, quite the contrary. He grew up on horror comics; just horror comics published slightly later on. |
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Post by shaxper on Apr 11, 2015 22:24:34 GMT -5
"Death in the Shadows" (from Vampirella #17, June 1972) art by Luis Garcia my grade: B+  plot synopsis: A teenage girl is found in a graveyard, eclipsed in shadows, hovering over a dead body and said to have done something obscenely horrific to it, she is sent to an institution where she continually desperately argues that she must sleep by day so that she must do what must be done by night, she is given electro shock therapy until her memories of the past have been blocked, returns home just in time for a vampire to start killing in her new neighborhood, and, just as you're supposed to be convinced she is a vampire, it turns out that she had staked a vampire in the beginning and that her father, the one who did the killing, now is one. He bites her, and the story ends.Once more Moench employs Atom-Age misdirection to give us a compelling twist ending that even I didn't entirely see coming, though the clues were there all along. We've also got the playful double meaning in the title again, as what that shadow in the first panel hides is the key to unlocking the entire mystery (her having staked a person), and that serves as Moench's visual premise for this story as well. But, as the Story Behind the Story he published in this same issue (see previous review) revealed, Moench is most mindful of his vocabulary and tone at this point so as to create "an 'olde timey' feel--the kind you get from Ambrose Bierce or H.P. Lovecraft" (Moench's words), though his vocabulary is more reserved and precise than in that intentionally absurdly written piece and, therefore, beautifully evocative. Also, once again, editorial seems to be treating Moench like royalty right now, lining him up with yet another master of an artist fully equipped to help generate the tone Moench is looking for. Just LOOK at the art Luis Garcia turns in for this story:    A few problems typical of these early Moench stories resurface: the characters are uni-dimensional, the revelation at the end feels rushed and poorly paced, and, if you've been reading his stories back to back (as no one would have back then), he's clinging to this misdirection/revelation pattern far too rigidly in these tales and really needs to try something different. But, if Moench's primary concern with this story was to establish a creepy tone and "olde timey" feel, he succeeded in spades. In part, this is achieved because he employs a trick not used before where the words and the art take turns showing off, rarely competing for attention at the same time. Garcia's largest, most detailed and expressive panels are never accompanied by narration, and panels with a lot of narration are always accompanied by smaller, less expressive artwork. For example, while this story is choc full of narration, you see none of it in the above scans, featuring some of Garcia's most powerful, expressive panels from this story. Remember that Moench is likely still providing breakdowns for the artists at this point (we know he did this with his first four submissions, and it's likely why Pablo Marcos, an artist who knew no English and thus could not follow a writer's script, was first assigned to pencil a Moench story when he began at Skywald the previous month). |
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Post by shaxper on Apr 12, 2015 8:22:38 GMT -5
"Cross of Blood" (from Creepy #46, July 1972) art by Esteban Maroto my grade: A-  Plot synopsis: A dying vampire reflects back upon his four previous deaths, tortured by each one even though he knows he'll rise again. He relives each death -- betrayal by his first love (a vampire), dying after killing his own mother and causing the death of his father, a death in which he was rescued by his own "bride" for which he cared nothing, and this most recent death in which he fell in love with a mortal, swore never to harm her, but instead compelled her to bring him blood each night, which she finally did in the form of a cross on his wall, causing him to starve to death.In my last review, I suggested that Moench needed to get away from the structure he was tediously employing in his stories and try something new. Here he succeeds in spades. This is a fascinating story, both because it tells the all too familiar tale of the monster/villain who just never fully dies from the monster's perspective (I felt like I watched every Christopher Lee Dracula film in these ten pages), and because the characterization is remarkably deep. Moench hasn't generally invested much energy in his characters up until now, but this vampire is downright compelling and full of pathos, especially as Moench lightly infers, but never explicitly states, that what's at the core of his tragedy is a lack of love. His first love betrayed and killed him, he then betrayed and killed his parents, he took on a cult of brides that loved him in a way that was false/forced and which he could not return, and he finally finds something close to true love, though he is compelling it from the woman through mind control and is ultimately betrayed by her for it. This could have made one hell of an Anne Rice novel. But there are problems, to be sure. One is that there's absolutely no clue/tip-off to the ending. We never see the girl's love begin to waver for him or receive any indication that she has any reason to want to betray him. She's little more than an object who appears for exactly one page. However, I think the larger problem is Esteban Maroto. On the one hand, his art is, at times every bit as gorgeous and gothic in tone as what I've now come to expect from the Warren artists paired with Moench:  On the other, I sincerely doubt he is following Moench's breakdowns. This is the first time that the layouts of a Moench story truly feel different from what's been done before, the panels smaller, more crammed, and arranged in a lackluster fashion throughout most of the story. It's generic and just doesn't fit at all with what Moench has been seeking to do with tone in his works.  I think this might help to explain why the ending falls short, too. Perhaps Moench's breakdowns called for a final close-up on the girl's face, where her feelings about the vampire are in doubt? Perhaps not. But whatever the case, these visuals do not properly bring Moench's writing to life. They don't fit his tone, nor the style that we've seen carried across the works of so many artists who have penciled his scripts thus far. Once more, the visual concept at the center of Moench's story is right there in the title, and, much like "Stake in the Game," there's humor at play in the title's double meaning (the girl "crosses" him by the close). And, once more, Moench is consciously using more elaborate vocabulary to help evoke his tone. It's very heavy-handed at first, but eases up nicely and generally works well for most of the story. A favorite of mine for its surprising depth of characterization. Too bad Jose Bea, Pablo Marcos, or Luis Garcia couldn't have penciled this one. |
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Post by shaxper on Apr 12, 2015 20:05:34 GMT -5
"Won't Get Fooled Again" (from Vampirella #18, August 1972) art by Rafael Aura León my grade: C+  Well if Bad Moon on the Rise wasn't proof enough that Moench sometimes takes inspiration from (then) current rock music, we've got this tale. And, if you have any doubt that Moench was thinking of the song while writing, we get this little moment as our characters first meet this strange British man who will play a key role in the story:  "WHO--?!" Truly, though, the story draws more similarity to another of Moench's earlier works, I am Dead, Egypt, Dead, in that both are about unscrupulous people enacting a murderous double cross for profit and finding themselves triple crossed in the process. The difference this time is that, while that story was set in and around an Egyptian tomb, there was no supernatural element at work. This tale, though more noir than horror, does employ a supernatural retribution by the close. But it's a flawed story in many respects. The characters are flat and detestable, the plot ultimately doesn't make all that much sense, and the final twists depend upon far too much explanation being offered far too quickly. Just look at how the final two pages of the story are over-powered by word balloons:   Worse yet, while I think Moench was trying to experiment once again and avoid falling into a rut with this new gothic style he'd perfected in recent stories, I truly miss his narration (almost entirely absent), and there also doesn't appear to be a central visual concept anywhere in this tale. However, Auraleon turns in some fantastic artwork, once again employing a non-traditional layout consistent with the last few Moench stories (aside from Cross of Blood), suggesting that Moench is still providing breakdowns to his artists:  Incidentally, I just read up on Auraleon, with whom I was not previously familiar. What a sad ending. |
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Post by MDG on Apr 13, 2015 11:31:09 GMT -5
Y'know, I wonder how many of the Spanish artists were fluent in English and what the process was like for developing these stories. Were they getting translated scripts? Was the writer or editor providing them with breakdowns? This is before fax machines and when international calls were still an expensive proposition, so I can imagine much back-and-forth between the Warren offices and the artists.
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Post by shaxper on Apr 13, 2015 16:10:24 GMT -5
Y'know, I wonder how many of the Spanish artists were fluent in English and what the process was like for developing these stories. Were they getting translated scripts? Was the writer or editor providing them with breakdowns? This is before fax machines and when international calls were still an expensive proposition, so I can imagine much back-and-forth between the Warren offices and the artists. It's likely that part of what made Moench such a commodity to Warren at a time when they were bringing in all these Spanish-speaking artists, many of which were not fluent in English, was that he provided breakdowns along with each of his scripts. In this way, even if you didn't speak a lick of English, you still had a pretty solid idea what the writer intended. Moench was doing this from day one because the visuals were important to him in conceiving the story, but it would have been an added bonus at this point. |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Apr 13, 2015 16:37:35 GMT -5
Well if Bad Moon on the Rise wasn't proof enough that Moench sometimes takes inspiration from (then) current rock music, we've got this tale. And, if you have any doubt that Moench was thinking of the song while writing, we get this little moment as our characters first meet this strange British man who will play a key role in the story:   Oh, my! Moench seems to have beaten CSI to the punch by nearly thirty years! "My love is vengeance now and it will soon be free"? Wild!
"Who's Next" was a great record that I obsessed over and quoted every chance I got. Of course, I'm several years younger than Moench, so I was very late to the dance. I love his unabashed enthusiasm for the music of his generation, even if (all due respect) in this particular instance, it's so unsubtle as to be mildly cringe-inducing. 
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Post by Phil Maurice on Apr 13, 2015 17:18:56 GMT -5
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Post by shaxper on Apr 13, 2015 19:22:22 GMT -5
Well if Bad Moon on the Rise wasn't proof enough that Moench sometimes takes inspiration from (then) current rock music, we've got this tale. And, if you have any doubt that Moench was thinking of the song while writing, we get this little moment as our characters first meet this strange British man who will play a key role in the story: Oh, my! Moench seems to have beaten CSI to the punch by nearly thirty years! "My love is vengeance now and it will soon be free"? Wild!
"Who's Next" was a great record that I obsessed over and quoted every chance I got. Of course, I'm several years younger than Moench, so I was very late to the dance. I love his unabashed enthusiasm for the music of his generation, even if (all due respect) in this particular instance, it's so unsubtle as to be mildly cringe-inducing.
Oh wow. I COMPLETELY missed that reference. So glad you pointed it out! |
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