I did something last week I haven't done in several years, I bought an actual back issue of a comic book. I'm mostly in the trend of getting my books out of the house and not bringing new ones in, especially vintage books, but this time I had to jump and pick up (for tiny money) the first Megaton Comics issue of Richard "Grass" Green's quixotic Wildman. It was jumbled in with a wide array of various 80's black and white comics, but this one I've wanted for a while since I first learned of its existence.
Wildman and his partner, the oddly named "Rubberoy" (that's not a typo) were created by Green many years before in the pages of fanzines, the place where much of Green's career developed. He had stints at Charlton and elsewhere, but mostly "Grass" Green was a fan artist of no small talent. He has the distinction of being considered the first black comics fan artist and did some important work in the underground press. I fell in love with is energetic style on old Charlton spoof stories and his work on his signature character Xal-Kor the Human Cat.
There is a mini-comic zero issue for this series as well as a second issue from Megaton Comics. The series was picked up by Miller Publications and ran for another ten issues or so. Maybe I'll find some of them some day, but right now I'm pretty happy to have found at least one more treasure from the talented hand of Richard Green, may he rest in peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment