Eclipse odds and ends:



Tim Truman came back to Scout, after a break to oversee the various mini-series (Swords of Texas, New America) and some other 4 Winds projects. When we next meet Emmanuel Santana, he has two sons, Victorio and Tahzey. Tahzey is the older; but, the story is told via Victor's perspective, with narration from interview transcripts, in the future. Scout has buried the boy's mother, who died of environmental poisoning. We see Rosanna Winter leading troops, putting an end to resistance in the Southwest. Scout takes his sons away from their home, into more and more dangerous territory. The nation has sunk even further into desolation. There is a very strong Mad Max feel, with small isolated villages, marauders and pirates roaming desert wastelands, and Rosanna and her fascist government forces hunting. Along the way, we meet a killer, called Redwire, who turns out to be an old friend of Scout's. As things progress, we learn that Victor has psychic abilities. They pop up now and then and become a bigger deal by the end. His story was to take center stage in the next volume, Scout: Marauder, which was announced, but never emerged. Tim Truman has talked about it recently and we may see it finally, somewhere in the near future.

The art is great and Truman has advanced even more, with some painted pieces mixed in. Scout's personal journey comes to a significant moment and his sons begin their journey, and are to take over the book. We see the Doddyists, who recognize the abilities of Victorio. Rosana has become more corrupted, as she has done nastier and nastier things to do what she thinks is right. It puts her firmly at odds with Scout. Their relationship will reach its climax in the series.

Truman also put together some unique pieces at Eclipse; not particularly commercial, but very satisfying artistically and for those of us who enjoy history, especially early frontier history.



Wilderness tells the story of Simon Girty, a white man who grew up with a Native tribe and fought both for the American colonies and the British, during the Revolutionary War. Truman was born for this kind of thing and captures the period well. He also does his best to sort through the legends and stories and depict the real man behind the infamy.

Along the same lines, Truman adapted Allan W. Eckert's biography/novel Tecumseh. It tells the story of the warrior and his role in helping unite various tribes of the Ohio Valley in resistance to encroaching whites. Truman and Eckert expose the history behind names that were glossed over in US history classes, including William Henry Harrison. Harrison was governor of the Indiana Territory and negotiated a treaty which ceded large segments of land to the US. The treaty was not undertaken with Federal knowledge and it heavily favored the whites and was opposed by Tecumseh and his allies. Fighting emerges, with Tecumseh and his allies fighting with the British in the War of 1812 and continuing afterward. It culminates in the Battle of Thames, where Tecumseh was killed. These wars helped make Harrison into a hero of the frontier, which helped propel him to the Presidency. However, he died within 30 days of taking office. Harrison is not a sympathetic character in this and is portrayed as a butcher. There is a certain truth in that, though the history is a bit more complex. Again, visually, this is beautiful and Truman's writing is top notch. Really, from this point on, Truman spent more time writing than drawing, apart from his work on the Grateful Dead comics.



Eclipse was very politically motivated, especially under cat yronwode's editorship, and they had several purely political releases. The biggest was Brought to Light, which features two stories, in a flip-book format. The firs part, "Shadowplay," by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, is a history of the CIA and there involvement in anti-Communist activities, coups of democratically elected governments, and the then-recent Iran-Contra Scandal, as well as their involvement in drug trafficking, to finance covert operations. The second side is "Flashpoint: The La Penca Bombing," from Joyce Brabner and Tom Yeates. It tells the story of Eden Patora, a rebel whose father was killed by Samoza's National Guard, when he was 7. he became a major figure in the Sandinista forces who deposed Somoza. However, he grew disenchanted with the Ortega government and broke away, creating a new rebellion of peasants and indigenous persons, who also were at odds with the Contras, who were ex-Somocistas , the former National Guard and other Somoza loyalists. What emerges is a tale of a CIA hit on a popular rival to their puppet forces in Central America and their involvement in the drug trade. It also tells the story of the American journalists who uncovered the CIA connections to the murder and their involvement in drug trafficking, which then led to a lawsuit from the Christic Institute. It brings up how the allegations were buried in side committee hearing, during Iran-Contra, despite strong evidence of Oliver North and the other conspirators involvement in the events.

The book is a powerful work; but, its political nature and the fact that it was published by an independent publisher meant it went mostly unseen. Fans of Alan Moore picked it up, because it was his work, in an era where he was hot and was moving beyond the confines of DC. However, it was a Quixotic work, at best.

Of a similar nature, also edited by Joyce Babner, was Real War Stories. These weren't the tales of Robert Kanigher or Ernie Pyle; these were stories of military personnel being used for scientific experimentation, without their direct knowledge, the use of military force to protect narrow corporate interests, and the little reported scope of peacetime deaths in what were labelled "training accidents." I never read the first issue, and was unable to locate it during my active collecting days. i did have the second, which included an excerpt from Gen. Smedley Butler's War Is A Racket. Butler was a Marine Corps general and hero, who twice won the Congressional Medal of Honor, and led Marine troops during some of the US incursions in Latin America. He speaks of his time as a military governor, spending more time dealing with US bankers poking into things than in administering the territories. He speaks of the conspiracy that approached him to launch a coup against the Roosevelt Administration, which he reported to Congress. Despite determining that there was significant evidence of the reality of the coup plot, a formal investigation was never undertaken. The training deaths piece was especially timely, as there had been a recent scandal within the US Navy Dive School, about the number of deaths that occurred during training, especially an exercise which involved instructors hitting students who popped up out of the water. Several injuries occurred and more than one drowning death. The story was picked up by the national media, briefly, then they moved on. it was one of many such accidents. The Marines have had numerous casualties in relation to testing and training with the V-22 Osprey, the "tilt-rotor" aircraft. The pilots labelled it a deathtrap; but, Congress kept the program going. There was a later scandal of falsified maintenance records on the aircraft, to improve performance statistics. The book also brings up post-WW2 nuclear experiments, including the battlefield test, where soldiers were positioned in trenches, near a nuclear detonation. The exposure to radiation and fallout led to massive cancer rates among the participants. Again, there were similar scandals, as later experiments came to light. On a personal level, a friend of mine in college was the daughter of a physicist, who was part of the Bikini Atoll test. He later developed leukemia and the family had been fighting for government compensation to aid medical bills. At the same time, a group of Vietnam veterans were fighting to force the government to recognize medical issues related to the use of the defoliant Agent Orange.

It would be easy to label these stories as anti-military; but, they were supportive of the affected soldiers and criticized the bureaucracy that endangered them, often needlessly. The issue coincided with my own souring of the Navy, in light of cover-ups related to the USS Iowa explosion and the surprise invasion of Panama and the incarceration of Noriega. That was later followed by events relating to the first Gulf War and the Tailhook sexual harassment scandal, which cemented for me that I wanted no career in the Navy. There are a lot of good people serving and leading; but, there were also a lot that were endangering lives and playing a game of CYA.

El Salvador: A House Divided looked at the history of the country, which was in the midst of a violent civil war and was ruled by a repressive regime, which was believed responsible for torture and murder of labor activists and peace activists, including a group of nuns and the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

Moving away from politics, Eclipse also dabbled with literary adaptations. I have already mentioned P Craig Russell's work and The Hobbit; but, there were others.



Eclipse published a reprint of a 1949 comic, Fast Fiction, issue 3, featuring an adaptation of H Rider Haggard's She. It was the only issue from the series they reprinted. Why they reprinted it, I do not know. It is done in black and white, with some art retouching. There is nothing particularly spectacular about the art; it is fairly representative of this kind of thing, from the late 40s. Fast Fiction was a short-lived series, from Seaboard Publications, and appears to be an attempt at a rival to Classics Illustrated. Haggard's story features a group of explorers lost in Africa, who stumble across a hidden civilization, ruled by Ayesha, the keeper of a pillar of flame that grants immortality. It's one of Haggard's seminal works; but, why this and not King Solomon's Mines, which would have been more commercial? Why this and not the other Fast Fiction issues?

M features Jon J Muth adapting Fritz Lang and Thea von Habau's movie, starring Peter Lorre. The film was a masterpiece of German expressionist film and is one that is studied by film students and historians. It is a crime story of a pathetic child murderer, who whistles In the Hall of the Mountain King, from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt. A young girl, Elsie Beckmann disappears and is found murdered. No one saw her go off with anyone. The only witness was a blind balloon vendor, who heard the whistling. Inspektor Lohmann is charged with catching the killer, and is under pressure, as the community is up in arms. He begins leaning on the criminal element to help route out the killer. The blind vendor hears the whistling again and recognizes it. He writes an M on his hand, in white chalk and presses it on the shoulder of the man. He shouts that it is the killer. A mob chases the man and he is cornered inside an empty office building. He is routed out and put on trial by criminals. He cries out in his defence, that he is sick, not a cold blooded murder as they are. Muth captures the story in black and white paintings, matching the look of Lang's film. It's a stunning work. It was later collected in a hardcover volume, by Abrams Publishing.

I Am Legend adapts Richard Matheson's seminal zombie novel, which was the basis for the movies The Last Man on Earth, Omega Man, and the eponymous film, with Will Smith. Steve Niles and Elman Brown do the adaptation, which was later collected by IDW. Niles was a factor in several other works at Eclipse.

Eclipse published numerous horror titles, towards the end of their run, including some Clive Barker, Robert E Howard and Steve Niles own work.



I'm not a horror fan, so I skipped this stuff; but, they have some talented people involved. P Craig Russell and Steve Niles worked on some of the Barker stuff, and Niles own Fly in My Eye series had a couple of olumes printed here. Pigeons From Hell features art from Scott Hampton, which is always good. If you like horror, then check these out.

Eclipse also dabbled in reprinting old comic strips, including Bringing Up Father, Krazy Kat, Pogo, and Modesty Blaise.



Eclipse published a few volumes of Pogo material, mostly of Walt Kelly's comic book version. They started to do the comic strips when their financial situation got out of hand. The did 9 volumes of Kazy & Ignatz, before going dormant. Fantagraphics picked up the series from where they left off, then reprinted the earlier material. Modesty Blaise was actually from Ken Pierce Books, which also reprinted a few early Airboy stories (with Valkyrie), Lady Luck, and the Phantom vs the Sky Maids. I don't much about this publisher, other than I owned some of these. They were black & white reprints of the material and they were heavily advertised in Eclipse comic titles. It's possible that Eclipse had a hand in distributing them. I had all of the Modesty Blaise books, which covered Jim Holdaway and Neville Colvin stories. Titan then put out bigger albums, reprinting the Holdaway and Enrique Romero stories.

Eclipse published numerous other books that I haven't covered (either because I don't have scans of them or never saw them, or know little about them). Next time, I will cover the remaining two of their most notable titles: Destroyer Duck and Zot!