The Great Comic Book Heroes!

It's pretty much impossible to overrate the impact on yours truly of Jules Feiffer's seminal mid-60's tome The Great Comic Book Heroes. I discovered this gem at my local public library while still a young budding comics fan and I cannot know now how many different times I checked it out, to once again savor (for free...hee hee) the Golden Age gems contained within its oversized pages.

For let's not be too coy about this, when as a youngster I got my clutches on Feiffer's extended essay on the nature of superheroes and their role in society, I was not in the least interested in his insights but rather in his four-color evidence which offered to me prime examples of Golden Age art and story which I'd only glimpsed on the muddy pages of Fantasy Masterpieces.

This volume offered up to me my very first Spirit story by Will Eisner, an early effort which sadly I still thinks does not truly do justice to the glowing credit Feiffer rightly bestows on the great creator. This book offered up my first look at the wacko origins of Green Lantern and Flash, two Golden Age heroes I sort of knew from their Silver Age Justice Society appearances in the summer crossovers. We get wild stories about The Spectre, a truly scary character and Hawkman, a fabulously rendered but nonetheless stuffy hero, and the truly offbeat Plastic Man, whose name I didn't understand for years yet.  The big three are present with stories of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, all clever enough. But always a Marvel fanboy, the trio of tales starring Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and especially Captain America always were my faves. The glimpse we get of Captain Marvel, a character still locked away at the time by DC's lawyers was fascinating, made me yearn to see more.

That was then. This is now.

When I was able, I bought a copy of the book for myself when it was released in paperback in the mid-70's. Later still I found an original copy of the 1965 Dial Press hardback (in a store in Ashville, North Carolina if I recollect properly) and treasure both. Some years back Fantagraphics published the book again, this time minus the comic supplements and I bought that too. So I love this book, that's true.

But I don't think I ever sat down with the intent just to read Feiffer's fascinating essay for its own sake ever. I now have and let me say that as I get older (today I turn 58) the notes in his writing merely ring truer and truer. For the first time I was able to almost perfectly understand all his 30's allusions without missing a beat, allowing the full richness of his imagery to percolate as it ought.

Feiffer's thesis as much as I can paraphrase it seems to be that comic books are properly junk, the very stuff which critics like the well-meaning but nonetheless loathsome Wertham (my opinion not Feiffer's necessarily) claimed they were. And that being junk was their point, their attraction. The connection between comics and juvenile delinquency has never been proven, and frankly never will be. It doesn't exist in that way, but the allure of comics as something delightfully anti-social is the very essence of the form.

So let me take a moment to thank Jules Feiffer on behalf of my ten-year old self who was delighted to read and re-read and re-read again those vintage comics tucked between his wizened words and let me thank him again now properly as an adult for those words themselves. You nailed it Mr.Feiffer, well done.

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Artistic Hacks!

The cover by Johnny Craig for Crime SuspenStories #22 might arguably be the most notorious in all of comic book lore. The cover, defended by Bill Gaines before a congressional hearing as being in good taste since the blood dripping from the neck was not shown, is one of the images which lingers in the imagination.

It's a wonderful bit of staging by Craig with just the right things carefully hidden. I don't necessarily agree with Gaines that this cover is in "good taste" but certainly it could've been a good deal more gross with little effort. Love the detail which is so very evident in this Craig original artwork. Amazing. 

Here is a clever reversal of the circumstances presented in Craig's cover with the distaff side of the equation eking out a bit of revenge.

And here is Jimmy Rugg's homage in blistering color which does beg even more why no blood is dripping from that neck. Hmm.

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Quatermass And The Pit!

The movie I'd most like to own which I don't currently is Five Million Years to Earth, the 1967 big-screen adaptation of Nigel Kneale's BBC serial Quatermass and the Pit.

Which was its title in Britain, but I assume was just to oddball for American release. This movie was my first experience with the complex rocket scientist, Professor Bernard Quatermass, a character played irascibly and memorably by Andrew Keir, who finds common cause with the more refined paleontologist Dr. Mathew Roney (James Donald).  They are confronted with a mystery which challenges many a cherished sacred cow and which threatens to destroy London and possibly all of human society. Barbara Shelley is along as a beautiful lab assistant and obligatory minor love interest, strangely enough for Quatermass. Julian Glove does a remarkable job as the unsympathetic military martinet Colonel Breen.

This is delightful yarn that starts slow and builds beautifully to a crescendo, with many a neat jump along the way. There's a decided creepiness to the story which blends science fiction with the supernatural in such a smooth way that the difference is negligible. The movie made a huge impact on me when I first saw it, though the years and experience with more BBC material of this type has dulled its impact a bit.
 

Which is why I likely now prefer the original BBC six-part serial version of the story since I've been able to glom a copy and enjoy it. The measured pace of the six-part serial better serves the story which has some very memorable highlights at the end of each chapter.

Andre Morrell plays Quatermass in this one and he does a magnificent job as a somewhat less irritable figure who is upset that his beloved "Rocket Group" designed for research and exploration is being turned to military use by the government and that Colonel Breen (Anthony Bushell). The story of the London dig which uncovers some peculiar hominid remains brings in Roney (Cec Linder) and his assistant (Christine Finn) to seek out the answers which ultimately challenge everything.

Christine Finn is too young to be matche with Quatermass in this version and the love interest is instead supplied by the young military officer Potter (John Stratton). This frees up Quatermass to have a more thorough teaming with Roney as the story rolls foward. In particular this version makes more of the troubling religious aspects of the story.

The black and white also helps obscure the "aliens" who cause all the panic, since the less vivid imagery helps obscure the limited special effects results which to a small degree undermines the effectiveness of the color big-screen version.

The finale of the serial is somewhat less focused than the film version, but the ending is perhaps a bit more thematically resonant as Quatermass is given a final speech which ties it up where the film merely seems to stop in a moment of confusing shame.

Either one is a hoot to watch and I can only look forward to the time in the future when I can relish them again.

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Phantom Threes!

It's an odd day since later I hope to pick up not one Phantom comic book from my local store, but two, and ironically both are number three issues. In a legal morass of rights ownership I will never fathom both Hermes Press and Dynamite Comics currently have the rights to publish new adventures of the classic Lee Falk comic strip costumed jungle hero.

Hermes is in the middle of publishing a six-issue story by Peter David and Sal Velluto done in a classic comic book storytelling style I can really sink my teeth into. Alas the frequency of publication has made following the story a bit of a chore since months and months pass between installments. Hermes has rigorously, if not fluidly, issued reprints of the vintage comic strips and comic books themselves, and I'm happy to see material of this kind being done by them, but I'd love to see it published with a greater fidelity to the predictable.

Arguably even more maddening is the absolute calamity the knotheads at Dynamite have made of their King Features "celebration". The plan, I guess, was to publish five four-issue books with an integrated storyline starring some of King Features' most recognizable stars. It began with a bang under an exceedingly handsome set of covers by Darwyn Cooke, but swiftly fell into disrepair. By my present count we currently have a full set of four comics starring Flash Gordon, three starring Jungle Jim, two featuring Prince Valiant, and only one with Mandrake the Magician. Today, if it arrives as planned, we will finally get three comics focused on the Phantom (this version is Lothar of Mandrake fame under the mantle). The storyline is a shambles and the frustration at even discovering when these books are coming out has been palpable.

I can say with no small amount of certainty that I will not follow another Dynamite series after this. I will wait for the trades, if they appear, but this utter contempt for and complete lack of respect for the reading public is one of the reasons I abandoned practically all periodical pamphlet comics eight years ago.

But all that said, I am pleased to find two Phantom comics waiting for me today. As I wrap up my school year with the obligatory paperwork woes, I have some fun pending at the close of business.

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The Brain That Wouldn't Die!

The Brain That Wouldn't Die is a humdinger of a low-rent movie. Essentially this is a 50's beat generation variation on the classic Frankenstein theme.

We meet our obligatory mad scientist Dr.Bill Cortner played with a calm mania by Jason Evers. He is the privileged son of a successful surgeon and a rising talent himself, but he is encumbered with a pronounced "God complex". He and his best girl Jan Compton (Virginia Leith) are driving to his vacation house which holds his secret experiments when a car wreck seemingly kills her. Rescuing her head from the wreckage he scampers to his house and then works to connect it to his secret formula which allows the head alone to live.

We soon meet his assistant Kurt (Leslie Daniels), a mutilated scientist who is desperate to get his injured arm healed and we encounter a secret  and exceedingly monstrous creation hidden behind a large wooden door. While the assistant talks to the unhappy head, our mad doctor slinks around the town going to one strip club after another looking for the "perfect body". He's pretty picky and has to abandon one potential dame after another when he is unable to get away with her without someone else being aware. His exceedingly creepy trolling for girls is perhaps the most unsettling detail in a movie filled with mutant monsters, twisted limbs, and severed heads. Eventually he finds the right girl, but by then his girlfriend has used her telepathic abilities to frustrate his mad schemes.

This one is an absolute hoot, a classic low-rent and low-brow offering which offers up the usual mishmash of overwrought dialogue. To bother to pick at the lack of reasonable motivation by many of the characters is a waste of time as most of the things they do are meant merely to keep the narrative plugging along. The special effects are pretty grisly by and large but lame enough to keep any real sense of gore at bay.

I'll have to give this movie some credit though for presenting in its lead character, played by Evers, one of the most unredeemingly dreadful human beings ever portrayed on the big screen. This guy cares for no one else but himself at any single moment in the movie, and when he gets his just reward, as he must, the lout is completely deserving. 

This is not a movie I'd probably watch again, at least until I forget that I saw it the first time.

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The Case Against The Phantom!

When I found the article from The Monster Times below at From Zombo's Closet, it prompted me to dig out my copy of "The Prisoner of the Himalayas" by Lee Falk and Ray Moore, and give it a read through to see if I concurred with the writer. I'll have more to say after you read this.

There's little to disagree with here in terms of seeing the world in the light of expansive colonialist expansion which has served to subjugate myriad peoples across the globe. The Phantom, like so many expressions of heroism of his time, buys into the innate and unstated racism which informed the society as a commonplace.

As the author states, we have to strip out the "romanticism" for the truth to be revealed. Well if we don't do that, then the story becomes what it is at its core, a skewed first-world myth of what heroes do, dashing about, wooing and wowing and fighting. It's hogwash, but intoxicating entertaining hogwash.

The Phantom in this story is the less thoughtful version who preceded, the more sedate and even-tempered variation we have today. While part of the famous four hundred year old heritage, he is not yet that far removed from creator Lee Falk's original impression that the Phantom was a glib masquerading playboy. He certainly walks and talks like it.

The writer of the article is correct as far as "she" goes, but then the writer "Mrs. M.J. "Blowemup" Weatherperson"  almost completely misses the point of the adventure. But that might be intentional.

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The Daily Habit!

Whenever it is that Jon Stewart leaves his current post at The Daily Show I will stop watching it. I've been, along with thousands of others, a fan for years and years of this show's incisive commentary on the politics and the news media's coverage of same.

For years liberals hustled fruitlessly to recreate the success of the noxious Rush Limbaugh on the radio, but they did eventually discover success on that level with Stewart in the other medium of television. Stewart is the guy who broke it down and made some sense of the chaos and pablum which is the news, and he and his writers did it with wit and laughs, which made it even more palatable.

Critics complained that Stewart was not qualified to comment (being a mere comedian) but they were wrong. Critics complained that Stewart was too liberal, but he never made much of a secret of his leanings, unlike many of his critics (and poorly kept secrets they are indeed).

Modern news media have descended into entertainment, so this entertainment show which mocked them so effectively was difficult to fathom at first. The crudeness could be off-putting, but the arguments always seemed to ring true, as Stewart time and again cut to the nerve of many issues, bringing clarity to almost always overheated controversies.

Like true satire, an all-too rare thing in our society rich in simple parody, the humor here had a point, to showcase the absurdity of public policy production and some of the policies themselves. It also cast a hard light on the absurd people who claim wisdom and seek to fondle the levers of power, bringing those folks down a few notches. Stewart was a ferocious satirist who was unafraid to tackle targets on all sides, though the barrel of fish which is FOX News was always making itself available.

There is nothing more painful to watch on TV than news folks who think they can be funny in the manner of The Daily Show. They fail and deserve to. Limbaugh often tries for humor and is never funny, only even more harsh. Funny is damn hard, and only true professionals should attempt it.

I'm not stopping watching The Daily Show out of protest of the new host. That would be silly. I'm just not going to make it a part of my regular day anymore. I'll miss it, but then at my age you get used to things ending. Sigh.

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