Start with a full-size portion of Russ Manning, then add a very generous helping of Jack Kirby.
Mix in in a cup of Alex Toth, a shot of Doug Wildey, and a pinch of Joe Schuster, and… voila, you have yourself a full Steve Rude gourmet meal.
Unfortunately, it’s a one-of-a-kind meal, near impossible to replicate.
Clean and distinctive, Rude is among my favorites of the “modern” artists working in graphic storytelling. (In other words: Old guys who, like me, are not that old.)
Nexus, created by Rude and writer Mike Baron, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Pages from early issues featuring the titular character rarely become available, and this great one isn’t going anywhere soon.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.We’re back on Tuesday (7/27) with… Jim Lee. Have a great weekend.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
Drowning in tar pits seems like a pretty rough way to go.
Then again, this is Frank Miller, and in the hardboiled world of Sin City, that form of murder might be preferable to some alternatives.
(In fairness, our “hero” Dwight ultimately makes it out alive. Sorry if that’s a spoiler, but the Big Fat Kill is from 1995. 25 years seems like a fair amount of time to catch up on these things.)
Big Fat Kill (BFK) is the fourth of Miller’s Sin City sagas, and one of the three stories featured in the first Sin City film. I can’t recall if the tar pit scene made it into the movie or not. Guess it’s a good excuse to watch it again.
As for actually drowning in tar pits? According to my anecdotal research and sources, It’s harder than you might think.
But it makes for one very cool original art page, and, in this case, that’s what counts.
Clive Owen as Dwight McCarthy in the first Sin City film.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
Two independent creations collide in the second issue of Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon ongoing series in 1993, as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles drop in. Literally.
The large top panel of this fun action page inspired the cover for the issue.
Larsen and TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird share much more than just a passion for all things Jack Kirby. (I would bet that at one time, no one owned more DC Kirby art than the three of them.) They tell their stories with endless energy and panache, something that is often missing from more “mainstream” titles.
Larsen made headlines recently with the announcement that he was relaunching Ant, another Image creator-owned project originally created by Mario Gully. (Larsen purchased the character in 2012, and included her in the Spawn series he wrote shortly thereafter.)
Issue #1 of the new Larsen Ant series launches next month.
Meanwhile, Savage Dragon is now one of the longest running independent creator-owned series of all time. Issue #260 hits the stands in August as well.
Back here next Tuesday (7/20) with Frank Miller. Have a good weekend.
Larsen’s August 2021 releases: Savage Dragon #260 and Ant #1.
We continue with our month long celebration of the “Independents” — independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
Matt Wagner seamlessly fits his independent creation Grendel into the pulpy world of The Shadow in this wonderfully realized mini-series. Grendel — Hunter Rose — is a natural adversary for the famed vigilante in a story set during the Shadow’s classic era, the 1930s.
Not much more to add here, except — I hope they do a sequel one of these days.
Here is a great oversize and dynamic page from the creative team of Tim Truman and Ricardo Villagran on Scout: War Shaman, a sequel to the original Scout series, about an Apache warrior in a fairly grim futuristic USA.
Although the first 16 of 24 original issues have been collected twice, the final eight of the original series have yet to make into a TPB. Nor has any of this series, or two additional mini-series and some one-shots.
Seriously? C’mon people…
We continue our month-long celebration of the Independents! — Independent creators whose work has captivated us as much, or even more, than the traditional commercial product typically coming from the large mainstream publishers.
Frank Brunner pencils and Mike Gustovich inks, along with the Brunner prelims on separate paper.
Guest column from friend of the blog, Mike Gold:
It all started about 31 years ago with Jim Steranko. Or so I’m told.
There was this advertising mad man who became producer/business manager for Chicago’s prestigious Organic Theater (sic) Company run by director Stuart Gordon. His Organic was to theater what Marvel was to comic books circa 1961: in-your-face energy, on-your-feet stories, and actors who might eat the popcorn out of your lap.
Today, Stuart’s ensembles look like a Who’s Who of American entertainment: Among the great many who made their marks at the Organic were actors John Heard, Joe Mantegna, Dennis Franz, William J. Norris, and André De Shields and playwrights David Mamet, Ray Bradbury, and John Ostrander.
That’s heavy street cred. I was an early and constant fanboy.
Among their many soul-conflagrations was a three-part heroic science fiction play called Warp. This was a risk as it went up midway between the cancellation of Star Trek and the release of Star Wars. Warp ran in three-parts, performed in repertory, two episodes each night. After the initial year’s run they closed with a Warpathon: all three in sequence, each act and chapter separated by an exquisite course provided by world-class master chef Louis Szathmary.
I have been privileged to attend four astonishing entertainment events: the original Woodstock Festival, the Comic Relief benefit at Radio City Music hall, the Chicago Blackhawks / Detroit Red Wings outdoor hockey game at Wrigley Field, and both of the Organic Theater Company’s Warpathons. That list wasn’t in order of preference.
My involvement with Stuart went beyond that of a mere fan and patron. We produced a comic book, Weird Organic Tales, as a subscription device for the company. By “we” I mean Joe Staton, Bruce Patterson, Chuck Fiala, Paul Kupperberg, and myself. I believe the print run was somewhere north of 200,000 copies.
So when Warp was revived for what turned out to be another year-long run (ending in the second Warpathon), this time at a larger venue, the aforementioned mad man, Rick Obadiah, contacted me about getting the comic book community to adopt the show and help spread word-of-mouth. I asked Rick how he thought of me, and Rick responded it was Jim Steranko’s recommendation. So Steranko was a grandfather to First Comics.
After the initial Chicago run, the first part of Warp played Broadway for a brief time. The provincial uptights of the 1973 Broadway world couldn’t deal with on-stage heroic fantasy in a science fiction milieu: it was all childish crap to those well-insulated Morlocks. The New York comic book community supported it to the gills, but that wasn’t enough.
I figured those long-suffering comics folk were still lusting to see the second part of Warp, even though it was almost eight years later. Coincidentally, the annual Chicago Comicon, of which I was a sponsor, was going to be happening at the time the second chapter was set to debut. I suggested we hold a special showing for the comic book industry – the writers, artists, editors, and publishers. We supported it with a panel at the convention and all the publicity we could muster, which was considerable. At that time, the Chicago Comicon was almost as large as the San Diego show, which had yet to be discovered by Hollywood.
Rick and I were well aware that, after seeing that second play, he would likely get an offer from Marvel, DC or both for the comics rights. I signed on as Rick’s consultant and, lo and behold, at the post-play reception both DC’s Paul Levitz and Marvel’s Jim Shooter made that very suggestion. Rick agreed to go to New York within the month, and he and I set down to work.
First, pun intended, I told Rick that we would make more money if we did it ourselves. There was no magic to producing a comic book if you can get good talent; Weird Organic Tales proved that. I detailed how the direct sales distribution system worked and revealed the proliferation of dedicated comic book stores across the nation. Rick thought I was nuts. OK, so that wasn’t a particularly original observation. He thought it be best if he were to just license it to people who ostensibly knew what they were doing. I said fine, and I proceeded to show him the business of the comics business.
I suggested he schedule the DC meeting first. “Why?” Rick asked. “Because Jim Shooter is simply going to say he’ll match DC’s offer and up the ante with the truism that they are Marvel Comics so the book would sell better.” Then I outlined ten things to watch out for at his DC meeting.
Obadiah was overwhelmed. He refused to believe what I said. “These are professional businessmen,” Rick declared. “They’ve been in business for decades!” Yes, I responded, but it has a mom’n’pop Depression-era mentality. Mind you, I had already spent a couple years as a marketing executive of DC Comics. Nonetheless, Rick still didn’t believe me. Fine; we proceeded with our efforts and the producer flew out to New York.
Rick called me after his DC meeting.
I told him what happened. I had a lot of friends on DC’s staff, and they had ears, so with barely concealed snark, I asked how close I came with my top ten list. Rick let out a sigh.
“You were nine for ten.” Hmmm. The industry was making a some progress. “I’m going to meet with Marvel tomorrow, but I think we’re going to take your publishing suggestion a lot more seriously.”
When Rick called back he told me Jim said he’d match DC’s offer and he noted the book would sell better at Marvel Comics. We agreed that the meeting we scheduled upon his return to Chicago would now be a much longer meeting.
When Rick came to my office – I was editing a home video magazine that, not coincidently, largely employed comic book writers and artists as its freelance staff – we began our real work. I started with the basics needed to run a comic book company and I noted that even with a minimal staff in order to be profitable we had to publish the maximum number of titles the staff could produce. It made no economic sense to simply publish Warp.
And thus First Comics was born.
I came up with a publishing plan and brought in talented friends who were also visionaries and risk-takers: Joe Staton as both a contributor and our art director, Bruce Patterson as a contributor and production manager, and writers and artists Howard Chaykin, Mike Grell, Martin Pasko, Peter Gillis, Jack C. Harris, and Steve Ditko. Our staff was rounded out with Rick Felber as business manager, Rick Oliver as associate editor (if you wanted a job at First Comics, it helped if your first name was Rick), Kathy Kotsivas as office manager, and Ken Levin and Ralph Musicant as directors and advisors. Production artists and art directors Alex Wald, Doug Rice and Paul Guinan later joined us.
We gave Neal Adams right of first refusal on Warp: he had been involved in the Broadway production, producing the poster and Playbill art and reworking some of Cookie Gluck’s fantastic costumes. Neal was interested but realistic about his work schedule.
Being familiar with Neal’s workload, I already had an idea for the perfect Warp artist. Frank Brunner had recently quit Marvel over typically valid “publisher-treats-freelancer-like-shit” issues, and he had given a cover interview to The Comics Journal about how the business sucked. Frank’s style was perfect for the property, and his concerns were perfectly justified.
Joe’s property E-Man was next, followed by Mike’s Jon Sable Freelance and Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!. I wanted to introduce some new talent under the cover of an already-established property between Sable and Flagg. Grell had done Starslayer at Pacific Comics and, while he was tied up on Sable he still wanted the property to continue. I brought in my friend of ten years, actor/playwright John Ostrander, and artist Lenin Delsol. Both were exceptional; eventually, Lenin succumbed to a bad case of Dreaded Deadline Doom and was succeeded by a guy I outright stole from TSR, the Dungeons and Dragons people guy; named Timothy Truman. Shortly thereafter, John and Timothy – with some help from Lenin – created GrimJack.
Along the way we picked up Nexus, The Badger, and Whisper and their creator/producers, Mike Baron, Steven Grant, Steve Rude, Jeff Butler and Norm Breyfogle. Then we went tits to the wind and produced our first original project by talent few had heard of: Mars, by Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel.
Now it’s 30 years later. Damn near everything we did during my tenure at First Comics has been reprinted in album editions, and I remain close to just about everybody involved. It’s been the most gratifying experience of my career.
It all started right here, with Warp, the science fiction play written by Stuart Gordon and Bury St. Edmund, directed by Gordon, and performed by several casts of gifted actors. Doing it was a no-brainer; how could we go wrong?
We can reread the comic book but we can’t recreate that original stage experience. Such is the magic of theater. But Warp and Stuart Gordon turned a lot of comics and science fiction fans into theater fans, including myself. I will be forever grateful.
Mike Gold is a columnist and podcaster for Pop Culture Squad (popculturesquad.com), a political activist, and media metaphysician for arrogantMGMS. An-award winning editor for First Comics and for DC Comics, Gold received the Heroes Alliance Dick Giordano Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2011.
This essay originally appeared in the 30th Anniversary trade paperback edition of Warp, published by 1First Comics and is probably copyrighted by somebody so All Rights Reserved.
Neal Adams art for the Warp Poster and Playbill for the very short-lived New York run. Thanks to a loving Aunt, I managed to see the play during its brief Broadway run. (She was probably either confused or mortified, but she never said a word.)
New art, along with a repost of last year’s Flagg blog:
Remember what is was like to first watch Sopranos or The Wire or some of other great early HBO-produced television shows? You knew it was TV, of course but it was so different… so much better than typical commercial fare, it made you think about what the medium could actually be.
For many fans — myself included — Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg (especially the first dozen issues or so) had a similar impact on comic books in 1983. Part SF, part satire, all adult, Flagg’s dystopia was like nothing else in contemporaneous comic book publishing.
Its inventive storytelling was groundbreaking, an oft-overused word that most definitely applies here. Need validation? Read those first twelve Flagg issues, and then read The Dark Knight Returns, by Howard’s studiomate Frank Miller, which appeared a few years later.
I’ll wait.
Or, just trust me on this.
Flagg came from nascent publisher First, and its editorial plan pursued mature, original comics from talented creators. And Flagg was one of the best of them.
It was obvious that Howard put his heart — and more — into the series.
In fact, I think there are only two reasons why Flagg isn’t frequently discussed in the same breath as other innovative titles like DKR or Watchmen.
First, it’s because of First.
Independent comic book publishers almost entirely relied on the direct market. Their reach wasn’t anywhere near as wide the mass market, and even with some newsstand distribution, a top independent comic book would never have the reach of a poor-selling superhero title from Marvel or DC, let alone a smash hit.
In other words, no chance you were going to score an American Flagg Slurpee at 7-Eleven.
The second reason is more frustrating.
Remarkably, all 50 original issues of Flagg have NEVER been collected. The early issues appear in and out of print from time to time, but it’s a pity that you can’t get the complete series in digital or print, on demand, as they say.
And that’s a conversation I’ve had with Howard many times. Many, many times.
How big a deal was it when Milton Caniff left Terry and The Pirates to create Steve Canyon, a new comic strip that he would own exclusively?
It made the cover of Time Magazine.
Time, the most important news magazine in the world in the mid-20th century, also featured Gandhi, Princess Elizabeth, Eva Peron, The Shah of Iran and Jackie Robinson on its covers that year.
One of America’s best-loved comic strip creators had declared his independence.
The big newspaper syndicates would no longer control the rights to Caniff’s cartooning.
In the days when star cartoonists were pretty much rock stars (popular comics helped drive newspaper sales), “The Rembrandt of the Comic Strip” was now fully in charge of his own destiny.
It was indeed a big deal.
To this day, when you want to reprint Steve Canyon, or chose to produce some lovely retro Canyon merch., you make a deal with the Caniff estate directly.
Milt Caniff — one of the medium’s greatest creators — leaves behind a legacy of independence that hundreds, if not thousands, of cartoonists and storytellers embrace on an ongoing (and not at all risk-free) basis.
Happy Independence Day.
From Top left: Cover of Canyon Vol. 2 featuring today’s strip; cover of the Eisner winning Caniff retrospective (both books from The Library of American Comics and IDW Publishing); Caniff in his studio with the model for Canyon’ s initial romantic interest Copper Calhoon; Caniff on the cover of Time Magazine; and a small hand-colored print of Calhoon. Caniff would send these prints to fans who wrote him requesting art or an autograph.
Happy (almost) Independence Day! Welcome to our second annual month-long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium. This is our third (and final installment) in a week-long series focused on Wallace Wood.
Shattuck is the rarest, the oddest, and the shortest-lived of the Wood Studio strip ventures.
Many collectors had never seen any until Fanatagraphics issued a complete collection a few years ago.
“Shattuck is more a collector’s curiosity than a bona fide graphic novel, pulling together the episodes of a short lived Western newspaper strip produced in 1972 for the Overseas Weekly. Wood’s studio had the contract to produce the strip, and as with others for the same market, one of the artists recalled the brief as being to get the women’s clothes off as rapidly as possible. It can’t be said that Wood underestimated his audience…
“Many hands worked on the project… Wood himself might be involved in any episode plotting, laying out, adding inks or correcting, while his chief studio assistant Nicola Cuti also produced plots and layouts using a swipe file. Most of the actual illustration was the first published work of Howard Chaykin, then Dave Cockrum, both usually inked by Jack Abel. Both Wood and Abel have utterly distinctive inking styles, so there’s no difficulty in recognizing which worked on which strip.
This particular example appears to be mostly Cockrum, possibly with some Abel inks and definitely some Wood fixes in places. It’s “Where’s Woody” instead of “Where’s Waldo” — you have to look carefully to find it.
Happy (almost) Independence Day! Welcome to our second annual month-long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium. This is our second part of a week-long series focused on Wallace Wood.
I own possibly the rarest of all Wallace Wood Sally Forth strips: A “PG-13” version (no nudity) and, more importantly, a full showcase of Wood’ talents; Odd creatures, robots, satire, action, and of course, sexy women. (An art dealer who wanted to acquire it from me told me that his married Wood fans could hang it up and not feel “embarrassed.”)
Forth, Wood’s sexy action-adventure character, who is mostly depicted nude in the series, first appeared during June 1968, in Military News, a 16-page tabloid from Armed Forces Diamond Sales. The title is wordplay — “to sally forth,” means to leave or attack from a military encampment.
Sally returned July 26, 1971, in the Overseas Weekly, and ran until 1974.
The character is absolutely no relation to the Sally Forth comic strip created by cartoonist Greg Howard.
But is pretty humorous when people mix the characters up.
No, not THAT Sally Forth
The Complete Sally Forth (Wood) — long out of print and VERY expensive — along with earlier comic book reprints featuring covers by Adam Hughes and John Workman.
