Back In Black!

He was such an irrascible fellow by reputation, that in retrospect I prize even more every scrap of artwork I see by the late great Alex Toth. He produced art for dollars sure enough, he was a pro, but he seemed to only do it if it suited him at the time. That's why it's remarkable that we have the image above, the back cover for the second issue of The Black Hood from Red Circle Comics. Toth produced three covers for the three-issue run as well as two stories featuring The Fox. The interior stories of the Black Hood himself were by Gray Morrow and Pat Boyette, but it's all Toth on the outside.  

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Lone Justice!

Lone Justice by Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley has been lurking on the shelves of my local comic book store for many moons. I've picked it up a few times, given it a glance then put it back. The story is spread across two trade volumes, both popping for twenty bucks, so the idea of taking a chance on a brand new character for nearly forty dollars was a bit off-putting. I relented yesterday to temptation after reading and enjoying classic Wheatley storytelling in the Mars volume, also from IDW. I took the gamble and it paid off in spades.

This is a fantastic story, well told and blessed with lush beautiful compelling artwork. It's a pulp yarn in the vintage tradition, set in a mythical city during the Great Depression, it tells the story of Lone Justice, a masked vigilante who is at the end of his string financially in his struggle against the mysterious foe called "Scion". He is in reality Octavius Brown the seemingly indolent son of a pillar of the community who has served his community in secret for many years. He is ably assisted by Mrs.Solstice, the family's longtime servant and once upon a time by a scientist named Gus Gotmoggen and once had a partner named Lady Fortune. His partners have turned from him, put off by the times and by his unwillingness to fight for things which in their minds truly matter. He has become too much a defender of the status quo and is blind to the broader suffering the hard times have wrought. Now he needs help to keep up the fight and he cannot find it, so he finds himself down and out but still driven to make a difference. How he will make that difference is discovered when he meets a young woman named Jean who helps him find a way forward.
 

"Crash!" is the actual title of this story which unfolds over the course of both trades. It was originally produced for the internet at the ComicMix website and is gathered together here. It's a story with power and punch and real actual heart which hits all the right notes for its pulp roots as well as showing how those old tales can still have something important to say to us in these modern days of the "Great Recession".

The artwork by Wheatley is  simply outstanding. He apparently painted these pages which have a powerful cinematic flair and read unerringly and with momentum. I'd love to read more in this universe, but it seems unlikely. But we have this story, one which will please pulp fans immensely and will have something to offer those wanting a bit of modern commentary in their tales.

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Jon Sable Freelance!

Mike Grell is doubtless a fine comic book artist with an immense track record of entertaining and well-crafted comics to his credit, both as a writer and as an artist. But I have to admit I was slow to appreciate his talents. It mostly has to do with his debut on the Legion of Super-Heroes which put him in the exceedingly unenviable position of having to follow Dave Cockrum. Grell had Cockrum's gloss but lacked the easy sense of anatomy which made so many of Cockrum's costumes work. And it has always been that oddball anatomy of his which leaves me a bit cool on Grell. But that said, I really like artists like Herb Trimpe and Steve Ditko who have decidedly specific ways to draw the human form. I should like Grell more than I have traditionally done. 

But if I was going to fall under Grell's spell, it would have to be in the exceedingly well done series he concocted for the then-new First Comics in 1983. Jon Sable Freelance is Grell at the top of his game with a character who has a number of fascinating qualities. I've been on a First Comics kick lately so I went ahead and picked up the first volume of IDW's The Complete Jon Sable Freelance which reprints the first six issues of the series. These are the first two action-filled stories (one guest-starring Ronald Reagan no less) in which we meet Sable and his cast of characters and the four-part origin story which together form a reasonably tight tale overall. I owned all of these comics once upon a time, when I thought that First Comics might well be the way forward for the form, a smart well-organized company with top talent. They lasted longer than many, but failed ultimately to live up the expectations.

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Everything's normalman!

This is an exceedingly fun black and white comic book volume that likely needs to be in every true blue comic book fan's collection somewhere. For relatively small money you can own The Complete normalman by Jim Valentino. Valentino, one of the guys who would become part of the infamous Image group started his comics journey with this satire on the superhero comic which posited a "normal man" on a world overrun with supermen, superwomen, superteens, and such.

normalman began as a try-out back-up feature in Dave Sim's Cerebus, specifically issues fifty-six and fifty-seven. Then as quick as that it leaped into its own self-titled comic run from the Aardvark-Vanaheim brand. What we get is a romp of a soap opera with all manner of gags and comic book tropes getting trounced before our very eyes. It's a wild ride, but a familiar one to anyone who has  read as many classic comics as folks likely to frequent this blog have done.

The covers to the series are remarkable in that each is a spoof of a different genre and most feature a particularly famous classic comic book cover turned more than a bit sideways for our viewing pleasure. Here they are, many with their inspirations.

normalman even makes a guest appearance in Aardvark-Vanaheim's Journey series, a clever spin on the marketing the character often ridicules.

Then thee came a change, and this is where I left the series originally many moons ago. Aardvark-Vanaheim underwent a split as Dave Sim and his wife parted ways each taking some of the titles with them. normalman became part of the Renegade Press brand after one joint offering.

Renegade Press then went on to finish the original storyline.

The story wrapped up appropriately in the normalman 3-D annual in 1986.

Slave Labor Graphics collected the saga in 1987. And that was all she wrote for normalman and his pals for many years.

Then after the aforementioned Image brand was ignited Jim Valentino dusted off normalman for a one-off romp with Donald Simpson's Megaton Man as well as many other Indy stars of bygone eighties.

In 2004 normalman celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a new story, the last to date.

All this comics goodness can be found in glorious black and white in the pages of The Complete normalman.

Dig up a copy if you can, it's well worth the effort, especially for those who are tired of paying too much for too little entertainment.

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