Fred Hembeck is an original. Hembeck has made no secret of his utter fanboy adoration of vintage comic books, in fact the absolute reverse is the case. Hembeck spreads his affection and his sometimes withering analysis widely for all to read and enjoy. He does it like no one else, from inside the medium as a comic book character himself. It's not a route he took directly as he describes in the mammoth The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus, but rather a haphazard advance into the medium. It once upon a time felt like a Hollywood movie hadn't really impacted the culture until MAD Magazine put their distinctive satirical stamp on it, and later Saturday Night Live performed much the same function for a few blessed years. Hembeck is like that, in that until he sees fit to make a commentary in his own unique way upon a given comic book it really is just another pamphlet in the pile. His attention gives it cache, it rates a thumbs up or a thumbs down or most likely a thumbs sideways.
Hembeck divides this mammoth nine hundred page tome into seven parts. Part One deals with his "Little Freddy" strips produced in 1999 and show Hembeck as a mature cartoonist in command of his material. These are charming little tales of the nostalgic time when comic books were just becoming part of Fred's life.
The Second part of the book is the heart of the volume as far as I'm concerned. It contains black and white reprints of all seven of Hembeck's impressive collections for Fantaco (not Fantagraphics as he points out a few times), a small publisher who specialized in fan-friendly informative books. These are collections of Hembeck's "Dateline: @!?!#" pages from Alan Light's The Buyer's Guide. In addition there are new pieces included as well, though by this time all of it glows with a delightful glow of Bronze Age nostalgia. Truth told if you were not into comics in the late 70's and 80's not much of this is going to make much sense. But sense that was a heyday for yours truly, I lapped it up. At least all of it I could read. Hembeck's greatest failing is an inability to limit his verbage and while pages filled with fun images are a hoot often the words themselves are microscopic and well beyond my tired old eyes (even with assist) to make out. So some of it I jut wrote off and moved on.
The Third section of the book contains 1980'd material that didn't make it into the collections and there's a definite randomness to it that makes reading and looking at it a real festival.
The Fourth section of this massive book incorporates some really fascinating stuff from Hembeck's participation in CAPA-Alpha. This venerable association was a pre-computer version of the message board with some blog-like features save it was all on glorious paper, much of it mimeo. An "APA" was an "Amateur Press Alliance" and CAPA-Alpha was the grandad of all of them begun by Jerry Bails no less. Members produced material, sent it to a "Central Mailer" and that person assembled and printed the result to mail back to the members for the enjoyment of the greater whole. I was a member briefly of an APA in the late 70's and was even central mailer for a brief time and I can speak with authority that it's a massive undertaking and I respect anyone who every participated.
Section Five gives us something different, some actual stories from Hembeck produced here and there over many years, some published before some not. We meet his superhero creations "The Dog" and "Mr. Mumbo-Jumbo" as well an intriguing interview with Batman about Frank Miller and a story about dating and time travel. One fun piece has Sgt. Fury taking on the "Hydra Ladies Auxillary" and this story was later redrawn by John Severin for inclusion in What Th?.
The Sixth section gives us more Dateline pages, these from a much later time in the late 80's and right up to the 21st century no less. To be honest while these pages are crafted with some more skill overall, they have less fanboy appeal for me because of the subject matter which while it includes blasts from the Silver and Bronze Ages has a lot of stuff from the 90's for sure.
The Seventh and final part of the book takes us into the 21st century and the shift to things produced for Hembeck.com and a comic strip called "Kidz". There are some of Hembeck's patented cover redos here too as there are throughout the book and if you know Hembeck you know those have a charm all their own. He has an uncanny knack for redrawing a cover in his own style and making that image fresh all over again. That's a gift indeed.
This is a hefty mighty tome and it's not a book that will surrender its charms easily. But it's worth the work for fans of a certain vintage.
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