The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

I have long been a fan of 50's low-budget director Ed Wood, attracted to his often tawdry flickers because of the commitment he seemed to have to making of them. He was a schlock director but he was an earnest one and that makes a enormous difference in the final analysis as a really good "bad movie" requires earnest and devoted filmmaking. You cannot make a really excellent "bad movie" on purpose. Those same feeling arise when I came across the filmography of 60's director Ray Dennis Steckler. He made some heroically awful movies, but he worked to make them good, or at least as good as he could at the time with the few dollars at hand. 

I'd like to take a look at some of Steckler's movies this month and I begin with the movie he's most famous for -- The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? As the poster says this is the "first monster musical" but sadly it's a lame monster movie and miserable musical, but when you blend these two together you get an awfully entertaining flick which succeeds despites its manifest deficiencies. The plot is simple enough -- a no-account young man woos a lovely young woman in defiance of her Mother's desires and along with his best buddy takes her to the carnival where they encounter a fortune teller who hypnotizes him into becoming a brutal and deadly slasher. As this plot tumbles out with Steckler in the lead role, we are periodically entertained by full-blown, but poorly rehearsed musical production numbers that stop the story but not the unintentional entertainment. 

The particular dvd that I used to enjoy this classic bad movie featured both a commentary by Steckler himself as well as one by Joe Bob Briggs. The first gave lots of information and excuses about the production and the second mocked it openly quite a bit, but that's the risk a creator always runs. Steckler has long since passed away in 2009, but he seems to have been a man with many demons about his career and how it turned out. He is at once properly proud of the many low-budget movies he actually got made, no small feat, but at the same time he lashes out at more typical lavish productions while the same time claiming no "sour grapes" are involved. It rings hollow alas and I feel for his sense of having had a chance at a big career akin to Orson Welles (at least in his imagination) rather than the one he ended up with, which was reduced to making porn movies in Las Vegas while operating a video store or two. 

Also there's the matter of his wife, the fetching Carolyn Brandt who stars in many if not most of his movies and who he had two children with. Despite remarrying and having two more kids, it's all too clear from Steckler's endless admiration of Brandt that he always was in love with her. I feel rather sorry for his second wife as he tallies up the virtues of his first over and over again. As for Steckler himself, it was under the name "Cash Flagg" that he starred in his self-made flicks. His career as a cameraman seems to have stalled in Hollywood at about the time was making these films and one gets the sense from Steckler that he thinks it might be a result of his pushing for the inclusion of blacks into his union. That's never stated, but merely suggested a few times. 

Steckler was also a fan of William Castle apparently as he converted this movie into a travelling live show of sorts. At a point in the movie when the "zombies" attack, actual people in zombie outfits would rush into movie crowds including often Steckler himself. This gimmick made the movie viable for many years as an ongoing concern, especially since Steckler and company would change the title so that unwary moviegoers wouldn't realize they'd seen it before. One such title was Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary. 

Whatever the case, this is a humdinger of a movie. It is full of indifferent musical numbers and singers with more vigor than talent, but that might well be said of the director himself. Steckler is a guy who could make a decent movie as we'll seen next time with his next movie title The Thrill Killers.

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Jack Goes Wild!

It will not a visitor long at the Dojo to see my adoration for the work of comic book master Jack"King" Kirby. I do believe that Kirby has more references here at the Dojo than any other individual talent. Well I was able to lay my hands on some reproductions of some important Kirby work, specifically the posters he created once upon a time for Marvelmania International, the second of Marvel's "club" operations. According to reports it was a lack of proper remuneration for these efforts that added yet another reason for Kirby to walk away from the "House of (mostly his) Ideas". 

But the fact Jack didn't get his just reward for these doesn't make then any less handsome and compelling to look upon. I craved them from the moment I saw them in an ad for Marvelmania, but I rarely used such mail order to get things like that. I didn't have the patience for the delay. It says in the to "allow 2 to 3 weeks" for delivery but my experience pushed that to six weeks most often. 

I now have versions of all three of the Kirby posters from that ad. I only needed to wait four to five decades to get my mitts on them. 

Marvelmania came forward with a second wave of posters and Kirby alas was only represented once with a fantastic Doc Doom effort. It turns out he'd also done posters for Spider-Man and The Hulk but his efforts were turned over to artist John Romita and Herb Trimpe who worked up their own renditions of Kirby's original offerings. This transformation without his permission was yet again a bit more reason for Kirby to skip off to DC to make the "Fourth World". 

I have gotten that Johnny Romita poster now and its so very handsome and slick, just the very thing that Romita brought to the Web-Slinger. 

Kirby is an artist who lies at bedrock of comic books as we know them. His influence is felt today by folks who don't even know that they follow in his steps. The success of Marvel's movie empire would be impossible without the work of Jack "King" Kirby. Stan too of course, but Jack made such handsome pictures that tingle the imagination still after all these years. 

If you want these for yourself I recommend the Marvel Classic Sticker Book which has them. 'Nuff Said!

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Patriotic Heroes!

With the vital help of my daughters we've been cleaning out my garage. It's a detached affair with two car bays, both of which have been jammed with sundry debris for nearly a decade now. When my wife and I first moved into this house I vowed that I'd keep at least one bay open for an actual car and for a few years I succeeded, but then the vagaries of life meant that stuff from homes and classrooms needed immediate shifting and the garage became the depository. So we finally at last buckled down and in three hard days (plus a large part of another) we moved it on, either to the dump or to sundry charities or used book shops. It was a Herculean task, not unlike the Augean Stables, but we did it and now we can smile with that burden gone. But we did keep a lot of it too, and one thing of value I uncovered was an unblemished version of the classic Uncle Sam poster above by Montgomery Flagg. 

That iconic image of Uncle Sam was created to inspired potential soldiers for World War I but it has become timeless. Comic books are a product of World War II, though of course they pre-date that war. But it was the war which made them an ingrained part of American culture and not just reading for kids. Comics became an important propaganda vehicle and were used directly and indirectly by the government to inspire folks to give their all to the war effort. Superheroes galore decked themselves out in the red, white and blue as chronicled in Craig Yoe's Super Patriotic Heroes tome. Over twenty stories about all sorts of heroes from famous ones like The Shield and Uncle Sam himself to more obscure ones like Captain Freedom, Super-American and The Flag. There are several woman who don the colors such as Pat Patriot, Miss Victory and USA The Spirit of Old Glory. 

The villains were readymade as well with Uncle Adolph topping the roster of baddies along with his co-conspirators Mussolini and Hirohito. Real Nazis like Himmler and Goering as well as made up ones like Captain Nazi and The Hun. These were evil folk who deserved to be killed or brought to heel and ultimately to justice for crimes which devour the very soul. Take That Adolph from Fantagraphics is a fun book filled with comic book covers from the era which showcase just how immersed in the war comic books were along with the rest of society. We have long been told now that this was the "Best Generation" and that's for good reason. 

But such musings get me wondering. In our modern time, our nation is rarely called upon to wage all-out war in the same way that the citizens of World War II were required to. The American war machine has become a permanent fixture and crucial part of the American economy. It has also become ever more sophisticated where now wars are fought with a minimum of manpower and even remotely from the relative safety of our own shores. Wars are fought in our name which we are barely aware of and not only are we not required to give our all to the war effort, we are actively encouraged to go about our business as if things were normal. And sadly maybe constant war has become normal, waged at such a low temperature that we barely feel its heat. 

So we have been conditioned such that when a true national emergency erupts such as the appearance of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Americans feel all too comfortable debating the very truth of it and when they are given an opportunity to protect themselves from it choose to find an excuse not to do so despite the benefit to the general welfare. I've recently been watching Wartime Farm, a British show that attempts to recreate in some small sense what it was like to live and work on a farm during World War II in Britain. It's the latest in a series of these shows that have focused various historical eras such as the Tudor period, the Victorian age, and the Edwardian era. But in the Wartime show there is a single mindedness to the show and to the mission of farmers in that time to sacrifice all to feed the people. Much was asked and much was demanded and while I'm sure there were struggles, it was also a time when much was delivered. They were after all the "Grestest Generation". Would that we could live up to their example. 

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The Sunday Funnies - Captain Easy 1933-1935!

Fantagraphics Roy Crane's Captain Easy Soldier of Fortune Volume One 1933-1935 gives a delightful and sometimes hair-raising glimpse at the original adventure comic strip. This brilliantly colored comic strip began with  Roy Crane's Washington Tubbs II which became Wash Tubbs a very successful daily in which its titular hero went from an Archie-prototype to something of a strip filled with globe-trotting high romance. Eventually Wash meets Captain Easy, a man's man who sought adventure first and asked questions later. When it came time to make a Sunday page, Crane eventually turned his attention full time to Captain Easy and it is that strip which fills up this debut tome. There are five distinct stories in this volume, each titled and that's how I'll deal with them. 

Gunghsi

From July 7, 1933 until January 14 1934 we follow Captain Easy, then a pilot for the Chinese government, into the lost province of Gungshi. Easy volunteers with gusto and soon flies his little biplane aross the Himalayas where he finds an exotic land filled with warring bandits, self-absorbed rulers and more than a few very delectable dames. He fights against the Mogul of the land and later for him when both are captured by despicable bandits. 

The Slave Girl 

This story runs from January 21 1934 until August 19 1934. Having become rich Easy buys a beautiful slave girl to keep her from the clutches of a contemptable lout and the pair of them head to her homeland which itself has become under attack. Easy is quick of temper, quick of wit and more than willing to unleash a submachine gun on his enemies. This is a not comic strip that blinks at dealing death, though it does it with a brightly colored zest. Easy meets a fellow Ameican named "Ramblin' Jack" who proves an uncertain ally. 

The Sunken City 

From August 26 1934 to April 4 1935 Captain Easy becomes something of an aquatic hero. Leaving behind the primitives for a time he relaxes in throes of modern society but tingling at the back of his mind is a city partly beneath the sea he'd glimpsed as his plane had crossed the mountains. Eager to seek wealth he hires an English named Pippy and the two fly into adventure. They find not only treasures but more danger above and below the waves than they can handle, and Easy almost becomes the groom at a most gruesome wedding. 

Pirates

April 14 1935 to July 7 1935 offers up a tale of how Easy and Pippy try to survive encounters with a mob of pirates who have joined forces to raid a wealthy island nation. Among the survivors they find is a beautiful princess. To save Pippy Easy is forced to surrender his golden treasure and we learn yet again that this man who seeks danger at every turn is still and all a loyal ally. 

The Princess

This volume closes out with this story which ran from July 14 1935 until December 1 1935. It's much different from the ones before in that the exotic settings around the Himalayas and thereabouts have been abandoned as Easy and Pippy head back to London. But Easy sees a beautiful woman he falls madly in love with and before you know it he's fighting duels and heading to the land of Nikkateena. His enemy in this one is one Count Heyloff who is a bully and scoundrel of the first order. Easy and Pippy get involved in actual warfare this time as hostilities break out between Nikkateena and Woopsydasia. It's war manufactured to sell weapons. By the end Easy is a hero but finds the attention too much to handle and hits the rails. 

It's all mighty splendid stuff, and reads swiftly. Crane's style is spare and filled with bright colors that explode from the page. It's a wonderful blend of serious and funny which is at once attractive and compelling. Easy inspired Joe Shuster no doubt and that's why Slam Bradley and Superman both resemble Crane's solider of fortune. I'm looking forward to more. 

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Joe Kubert's TOR - Volume One!

Some say that Joe Kubert was the finest comic book artist of all time. I'm not willing to give him that status myself as I regard both Jack Kirby and Will Eisner as more significant to the form, but Kubert was an artist I greatly admired and considered him akin to master draftsman John Buscema. Both Kubert and Buscema were able to bring grace and power to their comic book pages, and both held the human form as noble. Kubert was perhaps more gutteral in his expression with more pure energy erupting from his best pages, but always the story was essential and telling that story was always key. The greatest story Kubert ever told arguably was one he dreamed up himself while sailing to Europe as  a soldier, for it was there in the cramped quarters beneath the decks of a warship that Joe Kubert first thought of Tor. 

Tor was inspired by Tarzan and Kubert makes no bones about that. But by setting the brutal and wild adventures of Tor in the fanciful days of mankind's prehistory the connection to the more modern wild man created by Burroughs was shaded over a bit. Tor was a caveman, but not a real caveman, he was one who confronted dinosaurs and other monsters. It was not realism but passionate romance that Kubert was after with Tor, a primitive man who fought constantly in a dangerous world to stay alive, but who had quite literally an evolved sense of justice and a profound empathy for his fellow human beings. He was compelled to help others and that made him a mystery to his tribe who banished him and even to others who he helped along his travels. 

In the early 50's after over a decade in comics Kubert teamed up his longtime friend Norman Maurer to launch some comic books of their own. They entered into an arrangement with St. Johns Publishing and Tor hit the stands under the title 1,000,000 Years Ago. Maurer for his part had happened to marry the daughter of one of the Three Stooges and comic adventures of that hapless trio was the team's other project. But then 3-D happened. Actually Kubert and Maurer were key in developing their own approach to 3-D comics and the second and third issues of Tor were actually 3-D comics. Both are weirdly numbered issue two which is no end of confusing. 

In the first volume of DC's Joe Kubert Library which reprints these adventures of Tor, the 3-D effects have been eliminated for the sake of clarity. But in these tales we see Tor and his companion Chee-Chee roam the rocky landscapes of those prehistorical days seeking food and shelter and safety from the monsters that roam that impossible land with them. Also included in these comics are two other features, one by Maurer titled 'The Wizard of Ugghh" in which a prehistory version of W.C.Fields is an incompetent magician and "Danny Dreams" by Kubert which tells the whimsical advenures of a young boy who slips off into slumber in class and is transported to the days of dinosaurs and cavemen. Add in some stunning poster shots of dinsoaurs and you have a powerful package which made an incredible impression on the readers of the time. 

While the Joe Kubert Library volumes only have a page or two of the 3-D effect, the first Tor story in 3-D is included in the Yoe book Amazing 3-D Comics. While the ravages of time have meddled a bit with my vision, by careful manipulation of the 3-D glasses beneath my prescriptions I was able to behold fully the wonder of the 3-D effects. Quite impressive. For the record there is quite a bit of wonderful material in the back of the DC volume which discusses Kubert's plans for Tor in television and as a children's book even. As we'll see, he never was quite finished with this powerful figure. 

More next week when we take a gander at the second volume.

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Girl Fridays - Nova!

I have a various times reported that E-Man by Joe Staton and the late great Nick Cuti is my favorite superhero. I latched onto the Charlton project in the middle of its brief Bronze Age run but it filled me with glee to read the issues over and over and to fill in the few I was missing. Then E-Man was revived at First Comics, then again at Comico, then again at Apple, then again and again and yet again here and there over the decades. The last E-Man story was published a few years back and with the passing of Cuti there will be no more I guess. I'm both sad about that, but happy I got to enjoy them while they lasted. 

No small part of that enjoyment was Nova Kane, the college student slash exotic dancer who welcomes the alien Alec Tronn to our Earth and then falls in love with the dopey shapeshifter. She herself undergoes changes, becoming his powered-up partner. But at first she was a mere Earth woman as if that were a mere thing at all. I recently came across this bit of vintage Staton artwork. 

It's not the first time I've seen Nova rendered by her co-creator sans clothing, but it might well be the first time he drew her that way. She's produced in that delightful "bubbly" style (that's what I call it anyway) Staton had when he first started at Charlton. His figures were rounder and less angular. And "roundness" is the perfect way to draw a lovely like the alluring Nova. 

I miss having new E-Man stories but I will always have the old ones. Here are the original Charlton covers that featured Nova. 

Expect more ravishing "Girl Fridays" features in the weeks ahead. 

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Summer Fun!

The summer is in full swing and to celebrate this hot sticky time of the year (I'm an Autumn guy myself) I'd like to stay inside next to the refreshing air conditioner and read comic books. (I'd be doing that pretty much anytime of year, but it feels like an oasis this time of year.) After some heavy theme months, I'm looking to keep it a bit looser here for the month and read a variety of things, some I've read many times before and some for the very first time. 

On the docket is one of the great creations in the whole history of the form -- Joe Kubert's Tor. Created by Kubert when he and Norman Maurier were trying to ignite things at St. Johns Comics in the 1950's Tor has had a much longer life than the 3-D craze that defined it in its earliest days. 

And in the returning "The Sunday Funnies" spot, I will be taking at pleasant read of Roy Crane's classic full-color adventure series Captain Easy - Soldier of Fortune. 

I'll be taking another savory glimpse of some old favorites here at the Dojo such as Charlton's E-Man and The Rocketeer from Pacific and Dark Horse among others. 

I looking forward to a number of highly distinctive classics by creators noted for their particular and highly crafted way of approaching the comic book page. 

Look for the initiation of a new regular feature called "Crime Alley" which will focus on those comics having to do with hardboiled dicks and other gumshoe types. 

And yet another ongoing feature will be "Girl Fridays" which I hope will please those in the Dojo audience who like a bit of cheesecake now and again to enrich their diets. 

And I've got a classic lined up for "Showcase Corner". Metamorpho  is book that simmer in that Silver Age goodness DC was so very good at.

I want to take a belated look at some of those wonky Ray Dennis Steckler movies too. All this perhaps and whatever else occurs to me if I have time, but one I do know is that's it's cool to read comics and in July that's literally so. 

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