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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 18, 2024 13:36:49 GMT -5
Ouch...somebody please tell me I'm not the only one aggravated by the attempt to re-use the 'C'. My mind rebels at allowing this to be anything other than "En Bee Comics", even though I know they wanted us to read it "NBC comics"...
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 18, 2024 13:29:59 GMT -5
Here's where I am: As it's become more and more evident that Stan was less involved in the plotting than fans of, say, the 1970's, were led to believe, there remains, among comics fans, a strongly conditioned and difficult-to-displace affection for him as the "father" of the Marvel Universe they love. Hence, we want to extend him all possible credit, the benefit of the doubt, justify the conviction we have that whatever role he actually had in producing a beloved comic, it must surely have been critical to its success, and that absent the "Stan Lee magic" this story would surely have fallen flat and impressed no one. So even if we bring ourselves to acknowledge that maybe Kirby and Ditko were developing the plots, rather than working to a detailed outline from Lee (as has been convincingly established, at least in the prime years of Silver Age Marvel), even if we grudgingly admit that most--or at least many--of the grand concepts originated with the artists (notice that Stan never seemed to come up with a Galactus or Silver Surfer or Black Panther or Inhumans or Dr. Doom or Magneto when he was working with folks like Don Heck, Gene Colan and Dick Ayers, on books that surely would have benefited greatly from that kind of big idea), we fall back on the one claim that can affirm our faith in Stan Lee's vital role in these stories: Stan's unique scripting, his sense of dialog, his dramatic narration, his engaging sense of humor, those were key ingredients, that was where Stan Lee was indisputably a master of the craft, a once-in-a-lifetime genius who could bring these characters to life in a way that no one could top! Right? Surely we can all agree on that? Right? OK, maybe so, maybe so... And so I embarked on re-reading some of those classic tales, trying to isolate the scripting, the one aspect where we can always be confident Stan was dominant, even if the artists were supplying rough dialog suggestions. And what I'm finding when I re-read is that...well, the scripting is not that great, after all. It's distinctive, but, being as objective as I can be, it's just not good writing. Dialog is bombastic, unconvincing, redundant, overblown. The wisecracks are not just "corny", they're just plain not funny (Spider-Man during the middle of a fight with the Rhino: "I can't understand why everyone wants to end my capricious career! I always thought of myself as the most loveable little hero in town!"). I don't think I've ever actually laughed at any of Stan's supposed jokes--and take a look at some of the "humor" comics he spent so much of his career on if you want to see some real bombs. Stan's lines, to me, have the impression of being humorous without actually being humorous. Marvel.com recently published an article highlighting the dynamic dialog of Stan Lee, the best of Stan's scintillating sound bytes they could round up, and there's not a whole lot beyond "With great power there must also come...great responsibility!" and "Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot!" (Amusingly, I discover that the Thing's original, complete catch phrase was "Yay bo! It's clobberin' time!") His narration is inflated without being evocative: "Known to the outside world simply as Latveria..." C'mon, would we say "a bullring in the nation simply known as Spain", "on a mountain range in the country the world knows simply as Argentina"? I'm trying to find that Stan Lee magic, but it's not where I remember it being. It turns out my fondness for these stories really is rooted in the concepts, the plot, and the art. The scripting is getting a free ride on top of fun stories, but when I focus on the scripting, I'm not seeing anything I can really call "good". It's an ingredient that is inextricably entwined with my memory and nostalgia for the material, but I can't honestly say I like it, and I certainly can't say that no one could have done it better. When I see people pointing out admittedly bad Jack Kirby scripting ("...and me, young but cool Harvey Lockman!") I can point out equally bad lines committed to paper by Stan Lee. But for the weightiest, most evocative lines from Kirby, I can't seem to find the comparable qualities anywhere I look for it in Stan's work; I find padding, I find fluff, I find pretentious blather. I'd really love for someone to point me to one issue where they can honestly say "Just read the words, and tell me Stan wasn't a great scripter!"
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 16, 2024 14:46:12 GMT -5
foxley for posting the only comic bold enough to print its "coming next issue" tease on the freakin' cover!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 15, 2024 22:27:32 GMT -5
The promised 3-5 inches skipped Huntsville, but the icy roads and single digit temperatures will keep things shut down tomorrow and maybe Wednesday. No "snow day" since I can telework; tomorrow is the start of week 20 counting down to retirement!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 13, 2024 23:28:16 GMT -5
I can top that. In the early 70's, when I realized all of the ads in the DC books were printed on the same sheets, I'd often rip 'em all out, leaving only the story pages and ads printed on the inside and back covers. This is the most interesting thing I read this entire week. You win the internet today. You can win it for the month if you show some of these books in tomorrow's Zoom meeting. * *Shameless plug My collection's in a highly disorganized state at the moment. My first thought was "How would I even find which ones I did this to?" but then I remembered specifically doing it to THE SHADOW #2 while I read it in the back seat of the family car waiting for my father to finish up with something. If I can find my DC 'S' box, it would be fun to confirm whether this is a true memory!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 13, 2024 17:28:08 GMT -5
The stamp leads me to believe that it was a book exchange type store or a thrift shop. I suspect they had less than zero concern about defacing the book or its potential collectibility in the future. I’ll add that I’m astounded that anyone cares about Mark Jeweler inserts. I remember a time when people hated them. Probably because when it's removed, it makes the book incomplete. I used to rip all those types of things out of my books. I can top that. In the early 70's, when I realized all of the ads in the DC books were printed on the same sheets, I'd often rip 'em all out, leaving only the story pages and ads printed on the inside and back covers.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 13, 2024 17:23:50 GMT -5
That surprised me as well. I didn’t think anyone else would name it. I was also a bit surprised I was the only one to name Tubby Tompkins. This was the worse pick of the year , flying past Glory and wildfire2099 Force Works. Tubby was on my runners-up list, and he was one of my favorite characters back when we did that topic years and years ago. Seems like Icctrombone is begging for some schooling again...
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 11, 2024 19:01:09 GMT -5
For 2024:
Read the complete Heap from Hillman.
Complete my Jungle Gems or Jungle Junk? thread.
Complete a 6-page comics story, script and art by me.
Complete a comics-related article on a top-secret subject, for potential publication.
Complete a comics-related video on a subject familiar to some of those who've seen what I've posted here.
Sample a neglected comics genre, specifically, comics about healthcare professionals.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 9, 2024 11:22:12 GMT -5
Another I considered, but didn't have any genuine love for, was THE PHANTOM BLOT. I just love the very idea that a Mickey Mouse villain got his own title. I read a few issues, and they weren't bad, if you like Mickey adventures. I guess Western realized that the Phantom Blot was a favorite, so why not give the kiddies nothing but PB vs. Mickey stories for a while? A couple of series that I loved felt like spin-offs (and of course would be under other standards), but didn't meet our topic definitions. Gerber's FOOLKILLER miniseries had a new character adopting the identity, so it wasn't a qualifying spin-off of MAN-THING or OMEGA THE UNKNOWN. CHRONOS did have the Atom's arch enemy appearing in the first issue to hand-off the time tech, but Gabriel Walker was the lead of the ongoing, and he debuted in his own first issue. I only thought of BLACK GOLIATH just now, and I might have considered slotting him in. His wasn't a great series, so it probably wouldn't have made my cut, but I've got a lot of fondness for anything Hank Pym-adjacent.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 5, 2024 17:45:08 GMT -5
As is typical for me, my thoughts first went to the obscure corners of comicdom, where I considered THE UN-MEN, who were on my 2022 list of villain teams, and SKIN GRAFT: ADVENTURES OF A TATTOOED MAN, a very unexpected spin-off that, alas, didn't focus enough on the original Tattooed Man to feel true to the spirit of the topic. Dr. Doom and Ka-Zar were on my original list--Doom's first solo (which co-featured Ka-Zar) was the first complete back issue run I bought, and KA-ZAR THE SAVAGE was a tremendous favorite of mine in the 80's--but both seemed to be getting enough tributes this year. Tubby Tompkins was also on my early list, Tubby made my list of Favorite Characters when we did that topic, so long ago. I almost listed RED TORNADO, but his miniseries was just not as good as I wanted it to be; a favorite character, but not a favorite series. If I'd had it all to do over again, I'd have pled the case for allowing characters who were the subject of graphic novels (of some to-be-negotiated minimum length) to be listed, just so I could have considered (and almost certainly rejected) REVENGE OF THE LIVING MONOLITH, and I was sad the The Patchwork Man didn't qualify, with only two installments published (and only one in America!). I completely forgot HOWARD THE DUCK was a spin-off. If you weren't there for that original appearance, I can only tell you that it was outrageously funny to see an anthropomorphic duck in the Marvel Universe. That kind of thing seems like no big deal nowadays, but back then? Boy, oh boy, that was a hoot!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 5, 2024 8:48:34 GMT -5
JUMBO COMICS #166
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 2, 2024 9:28:07 GMT -5
So I was looking through some scans of Golden Age ACTION COMICS to acquaint myself with a particular backup feature and discovered, to my surprise, an extensive run of The Black Pirate, namely, issues 23-42, April 1940-November 1941. Why did that surprise me? Because I was pretty sure that The Black Pirate was a feature that ran in SENSATION COMICS, and sure enough, I was right about that; it appeared in issues 1-51, January '42-March '46. After that it moved to ALL-AMERICAN COMICS, running in issues 72-73 and 83-102, April '46-October '48 (with a 9-month hiatus in '46-'47). The feature also turned up in a few issues of COMIC CAVALCADE during that time frame.
OK, a pretty substantial run, it's not surprising that a feature like that hasn't garnered a lot of attention given that it was outside of the genres like superheroes, that are of more interest to modern-day fans and historians.
Here's what surprised me: ACTION COMICS was a DC title, while SENSATION, ALL-AMERICAN, and COMIC CAVALCADE were from All-American. Yes, the two companies did have some cross-pollination before and after their full merger, most notably in ALL-STAR COMICS and some of the special editions, but otherwise, the companies' properties--or so I had thought--were pretty jealously guarded within their respective companies' titles. But the Black Pirate defected from DC to All-American, where it remained for most of its run.
The only similar case I found was "Red, White, and Blue" (which I disparagingly and with zero actual evidence like to refer to as "no one's favorite feature, ever"), which was an All-American property featured in ALL-AMERICAN COMICS and COMIC CAVALCADE, and which closed out its run in WORLD'S FINEST (BEST) COMICS issues 1-7, a DC publication. WORLD'S BEST COMICS #1 was one of those special event comics that was then transformed into the ongoing WORLD'S FINEST, so having RW&B appear in that first issue was not unusual. Perhaps the WORLD'S FINEST issues were burning off material that All-American was willing to sell after canceling the feature?
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 31, 2023 18:00:25 GMT -5
One of my Christmas presents came late: It's Phil Manzanera's autograph, along with a pin depicting his red Gibson Firebird guitar.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 30, 2023 10:35:23 GMT -5
Well, that would be a pretty big loophole if an unworthy one could just wait for Thor to pick it up and then snatch it away from him, right? I do like that this establishes that the hammer can fly around on its own path, which explains Thor using it to fly where he wants it to go, rather than flinging it into the air and being dragged along to wherever it would land.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 30, 2023 10:24:02 GMT -5
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS’ TARZAN #100, January 1958, Dell Cover model Gordon Scott was Hollywood’s Tarzan of the era, playing the part in six films between 1955 and 1960. Written by Gaylord Du Bois Art by Jesse Marsh (Tarzan stories) and Russ Manning (Brothers of the Spear) “The Rifle of Tippoo Tib” It sounds like a silly name, but Tippoo Tib, or Tippu Tip, was an actual historical figure, an Arab slave trader in Zanzibar. The name is a nickname meaning “gatherer of wealth”, and he was an associate of famous white explorers Stanley and Livingstone. This first story is premised on the idea that this famous slave trader—acknowledged here only as “the greatest Arab explorer—the first ruler of east Africa”—is so respected that the black African boy Moki, son of the late king of the Badungas, will inherit the throne if he can follow his father’s clues to retrieve the rifle that Tibboo Tib bequeathed him. Moki has a poem—“My head untie, my steps retrace, the moon on high will mark the place” and a hunting assegai--and Tarzan uses the first part of the poem to get the treasure hunt started by removing the thong from the assegai to find a map to Mandrill Canyon. Tarzan leaves Moki, promising to return at night when the moon is on high, but Moki gets impatient waiting, and he climbs the cliffs indicated on the map alone. On the cliffs, he is attacked by mandrills, but is saved when Tarzan returns. The risen moon reveals a shadow on a distant cliff that resembles a rifle pointing downwards. Moki and Tarzan follow the clue to recover the rifle, which is in a hidden city populated by mandrills. Although Tarzan can, of course communicate with them, they are uncooperative and combative, chasing them off a ledge into an underground river. Tarzan and Moki swim out, having succeeded in their quest to earn Moki a youthful kingship and having become friends. “Zulu Welcome” is this issue’s text feature. Apparently these text features regularly told stories of the native boy Mabu, who here meets Chief Umtosi of the Zulu. The one-pager is a disjointed telling of how the Zulus welcome Mabu and his friend into their village. For such a short feature, it’s remarkably unreadable and uninteresting. “Tarzan and Kifaru” is the second and final Tarzan story in this issue. Tarzan and “Boy” try to rescue a rhino and its “toto” (young offspring) from a crocodile, but the croc kills the mother. Tarzan dives in and kills the beast, rescuing the young rhinoceros. They take the baby home to raise it, and include a shot of Jane and the treehouse, to establish consistency with expectations established by readers who know Tarzan from the Weismuller movies: Once the baby has grown up a bit, Tarzan and Boy release it into the wild. When hunters later capture Jad-Bal-Ja, Tarzan’s friend the Golden Lion, Tarzan attempt to save the noble beast, but he is surrounded by native hunters who want the kill. But then comes Boy, riding on the back of Kifaru, the rhino, who has come to repay Tarzan’s favor in saving his life. The “Brothers of the Spear” backup is untitled. This is an installment in an ongoing serial, that has Dan-El (the white “brother of the spear”) following the elephant corps of Molithi (the black “brother of the spear”) and saving them from an attack by Tuareg raiders. Maybe it was worth reading (for more than the pleasant Russ Manning art) if you were following the story, but this comic strikes me as one aimed at casual readers looking for a familiar character, not one aimed at hooking a devoted readership. I know Jesse Marsh has his fans, but his sketchy work is just not my kind of comics. Panels look like cels from a crudely animated mid-70’s cartoon to me. The staging feels static, and images such as Tarzan rising from river with water pouring off of him are unconvincing, establishing the point but not evoking any sensation in the reader. His Tarzan is almost always expressionless, intentionally evoking the stereotypical Weissmuller performance. The stories feel trivial, ornamented with mild thrills to cover very simple plots. This matches my general impression of Western’s typical output: competent but not engaging. It was close enough to the primitive version of Tarzan of film that the reader would find it familiar. From a comics fan’s perspective, though, there is nothing to really praise here. It’s a bit sad that with one of the best known characters in adventure stories, the creators would coast along with such bland, unexciting content. Basic competence and Russ Manning prevent it from being Jungle Junk, but that’s all. While both the Dell and Gold Key runs were produced by Western Publishing, the Gold Key approach to the feature, which I'll sample separately, was done very differently, as we shall see.
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