The Spirit Moved Me!

It was expensive, but I'm still glad I did it. I've long wanted a set of The Spirit Archives. DC published these handsome tomes soon after they acquired the rights to the character in the early part of this century. The Archive editions arrived over the next decade. Unfortunately, I was not in any position to make such an outlay for books of his kind at that time. Things are better now and so I've at long last treated myself to this elaborate birthday present. 

It started when I found the first volume at a local Half-Price Bookstore for a bargain sum. I let one of these slip through my fingers many years ago and I vowed not to make the same mistake twice. (Why bother, there are always plenty of other mistakes to make.) I scouted the internet and found most of the others for prices well below the original asking price of fifty bucks or so. Some a few dollars more. (I'll have to let my credit card cool down some before I take it out for a spin again though.) There are however a few crumbs in my coffee as a few of the tomes were in a bit worse shape than advertised but I was able to salvage them. And four of the tomes were either unavailable or way too expensive. I have the stories in other formats, and I'll keep looking. It's fun to have something to chase again. I don't regret the outlay as I see the handsome volumes sitting on a table next to me. They are great books. 

Below are the volumes I've gotten hold of. The smaller images are those four lovely books I have yet to add to the hoard. 

I have big plans for these books. At my age, that counts as optimism. But I'm not done. 

That series of purchases prompted me to go ahead and just get few more Spirit item I'd always wanted. I already own the first volume The Spirit Color Album and thought it was well past time to add the other two volumes of his very handsome Kitchen Sink collection. 

Likewise, the Christmas Spirit from Kitchen Sink and the 70's The Spirit Coloring Book from Eisner's Poorhouse Press. 

The 3-D Spirit is a fun comic and Eisner's artwork from this period does well in the format. The Spirit Pop-Up Book is a clever item from just a few years ago when folks hoped that movie might do some good. It didn't. 

All in all, a pretty hefty haul. I'm for sure smiling on this birthday. More on that tomorrow. 

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Manhunter - The Completed Saga!

My personal manhunt is finally over. And as a little extra-special find for my birthday this year, I located a delightful copy of Manhunter - The Complete Saga from the small Excalibur publishing outfit. This was the very first reprinting of the amazing series by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, and the only version of the Manhunter story I didn't already have.  And it's a much better package than I expected. There are great pencil drafts from Simonson when he was designing the character. And the late great Archie Goodwin supplies both a great foreword and afterword for the volume. And the short but sweet saga of Paul Kirk performs quite well in black and white. We are even treated to a full page of Goodwin's own distinctive cartooning. This was produced in 1979 by the Excalibur gang, not a time when upscale comic reprints were all that common. It was less than a decade since the original stories had appeared. 

Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson is among the most treasured comic yarns in my long experience in the form. As Goodwin describes in his introduction to the 1979 reprint, the freedom to create something fresh and unusually lively was a result of two factors. One was that the series appeared in Detective Comics, which at the time was suffering a sales slump and so change was seen as good. And the other was that Manhunter was the back-up piece and so seen instantly as less important overall. So, things could change, and in the Bronze Age changes in the status quo of comics was much ballyhooed but rarely done with total commitment. Here was a hero who could do things other Comics Code approved heroes might not be able to get away with, hidden as he was in the shadows of a dangerous world but also in the back of a familiar comic.

I have now collected the Manhunter in all its forms. I picked up several of the chapters in real time as they first appeared and have filled in the gaps since. I've picked up the 1984 DC reprint, the 1999 reprint titled Manhunter: The Special Edition which hard on the sad news of Archie Goodwin's untimely death offered a new chapter, wordless but no less important to the core saga. I more in more recent years picked up the story in a collection of Archie Goodwin's best DC stories, and I even popped for the magnificent "Artist's Edition" which showcases Simonson's tasty pages in their full black and white glory. I love this little saga. I loved it then and I love it still. I am not alone.

The story taps so many of the pop-culture vibes of the era, with a Golden Age hero named Paul Kirk who has grown disillusioned and then dies in a tragic accident. He is revived by a cabal of evil men who seek to use him and his genetic make-up to help them conquer the world. He turns against these men and turns his back on power and immortality to recapture that which they seem to have stolen from him, his fundamental sense of self and his basic human need to shape his own destiny as much as he can. 

The notion to connect Manhunter directly to the vintage Golden Age hero of that named made most famous by the Simon and Kirby team was brilliant. Ironically though the Goodwin-Simonson Manhunter has been reprinted numerous times, the Simon and Kirby Manhunter tales have never been collected though they'd fit neatly into a single slim tome. It's an oversight on DC's part for certain. We've gotten good reprints of the Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, and Sandman, but for some unknown reason no similar package for Manhunter. 

I first noticed something different about the writing of Archie Goodwin in his early Iron Man issues back in the late 60's when fresh from Warren he dabbled a bit for Stan "The Man". There was a deceptive simplicity to his writing that though it felt like it had not personal style was in fact rich with and inviting for that very reason. When he took the editor's seat at Detective Comics, I took notice and could feel that a more adult approach was evident in both the lead feature and the back-up. 

And then there's Walt Simonson who made his bones on Manhunter, a quick little series that lasted only a brief time but brought many awards and critical recognition to its makers. Simonson did not waste the heft the series gave him and went on to become a significant force in comics of the era. Reading Manhunter in various formats is like listening to a great piece of music in different performances, the greatness is always evident regardless. 

If they sell Manhunter again, I likely will buy it all over -- the music is so very, very sweet. 

Below are the splash pages for the series and the covers of the Detective Comics issues in which they appeared. All but one of the Manhunter chapters was in a 100-Page comic and those were absolute troves of wonderful stories from across the decades. Maybe that richness added to my ardor for the series. I don't know. 

The inventiveness of Simonson's pages is remarkable and reminds me of Will Eisner's delightful Spirit splashes and he was just getting started. (The story "Cathedral Perilous, the fifth chapter was specifically inspired by Eisner's Spirit stories, according to Goodwin.) Three of the seven Manhunter stories won Shazam awards (Chapters 1, 5 and the finale) and garnered best writer awards for Goodwin in 1973 and 1974. This series is so good that it has withstood all of the reboots by DC over the intervening decades. A remarkable saga indeed. Goodwin and Simonson returned to the character in the late 90's but before Goodwin could script the final pages by Simonson he passed away. Simonson refused to have anyone else write the story and it was published without dialogue of any kind. The storytelling is so keen that none is needed. The collection which featured this final new Manhunter tale also won awards. 

Comics don't get better than Manhunter! Now if DC would only reprint those classic Golden Age Manhunter stories. I have the few in magazines here and there, but we need a collection. 

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Atlas-Seaboard Comics - June 1975!

June was a pivotal month for the fledgling comics company known as Atlas. The change made in the editorial direction of the company was seen in the color comics, as Larry Lieber stepped forward and took control of the whole line following the departure of Jeff Rovin. Before this, the two men had split the color books with Leiber focusing on the genre books. Now all the books got some new talent and new directions. The fragmentation of the line is becoming evident.

PHOENIX #3 offers the latest episode in the life of astronaut-turned-messiah/superhero Ed Tyler as he attempts to solve the dilemma of a distant village overcome by Abominable Snowmen. He finds a destroyed village with a single survivor, an old man, and proceeds to find the rest of the missing folks. That brings him into conflict with the Snowmen and their creator and master Lucifer. Lucifer it turns out is something of a rogue Deiei, who resembles the classic image of Satan quite closely, and who is now free to pursue his inclinations since Phoenix has largely destroyed the Deiei bases on Earth. Needless to say, after much hoopla, and one sacrifice, the village is saved, and Lucifer is frustrated. The story is by Gabe Levy with more worthy artwork by Sal Amendola. Frank Thorne does the cover.

The second feature of the book is DARK AVENGER and it's a reasonably well-crafted tale of urban crimefighting and offers splendid Pat Broderick artwork. A young man finds a mysterious metal, is able to transform it into a suit and so finds himself with a wonderful superhero gimmick. That such a fellow with so vivid an imagination and so specific a set of skills is still living with his mother and brother is arguably the strangest thing about this little one-off story. It's a bit like Spider-Man meets The Katzenjammer Kids, but lots of folks really like this story.

DESTRUCTOR #3 gives us another installment in this ongoing Archie Goodwin - Steve Ditko epic saga. Gone this issue is Wally Wood, and the artwork seems to have been inked by Ditko. I don't know about that. The story continues with the Destructor still battling thugs from the Combine, but this time under the direction of Dr. Shroud. He sends the Huntress and her attentive sidekick Lobo to take on the Destructor, and they trap him in an elaborate casino/canyon (you've really got to see this one to understand that). Because the thugs fight among themselves, the Destructor lives to fight another day. One thing about our hero, he's certainly presented as a cool character who is willing to sacrifice others to achieve his goals. The anti-hero is popular with Atlas, but in many respects Jay Hunter is the purest example of the disaffected modern protagonist.

TIGER-MAN #2 is a real change of pace issue. Steve Ditko takes on the hero and gives him a really dynamic energy he was missing in the earlier chapters. Gerry Conway takes the writing helm, and Tiger-Man seems to become a more conflicted hero, more concerned with the lives of his enemies. He encounters the Blue Leopard, a man empowered with the same talents as himself yet set on a revenge mission against Dr.Hill, the Tiger-Man. There's more than a few clues to suggest the Blue Leopard is a Black Panther clone, with several origin details in common with Marvel's kingly hero. Lots of good fight scenes in this one, and a grand Frank Thorne cover.

TARGITT #2 gives us another story in John Targitt's ongoing war on crime. This issue gives more Howard Nostrand artwork, but the story told in flashback, relates how Targitt is transformed into an undercover FBI secret agent and gives him a uniform to perform his missions against the mob. There's lots of action and mayhem, and the story is reasonably diverting if not particular inspiring. Like the Dirty Harry movies that inspired this comic, there's an ongoing fascination with guns that seems to actually drag the storytelling down a bit.

POLICE ACTION #3 gives us two more crime dramas. LOMAX battles a hotdog vendor turned hitman, and eventually gets his man. Mike Sekowsky does another fine job with more McWilliams inks. LUKE MALONE finds himself drawn into a rock star's murder scam and eventually he uncovers the plot of this thinly veiled swipe of Alice Cooper. Despite an energetic Frank Thorne cover (Noticing a trend on cover art?), the comic seems to be losing its steam a bit, and just in time, because this is the last issue.

And now the new stuff...

THE BARBARIANS #1 gives us a new IRONJAW story, and its an okay effort with Pablo Marcos art and Gary Friedrich story. Under Mike Fleisher Ironjaw was a grim realist, but now there seems to be a desire to make him more heroic and sympathetic. It's poorly considered. In this story Ironjaw fights some barbaric mutants, and to my surprise befriends them. Sheesh! The second feature is a real strange one called ANDRAX. This story seems to be an import and offers the beginning of an epic saga of a young Olympic athelete captured by the obligatory mad scientist and sent (by unexplained means) into the future where the scientist is sure the man's will and stamina will make him a king among the weak future-men. All the newly dubbed "Andrax" finds is a wasteland and soon he's fighting for his life. It ends with him seeking other people. It's a well-drawn story, but has a distinct European feel to it.

FRIGHT #1 gives us the beginning of the SON OF DRACULA story by Frank Thorne on art. It's a rambling story, and involves mild incest and more than a bit of coincidence to concoct a complicated situation that finds a young college professor possessed of the curse and the power of Dracula himself. It's not a bad story, just a confusing one as origins can tend to be. The story sets up a man who seems to be both the hero and the villain of the story, despite his better intentions. This book is the only issue of Fright, and the only story about the Son of Dracula I'm familiar with.

HANDS OF THE DRAGON #1 might just be the strangest new addition to the Atlas-Seaboard lineup. This story with Jim Craig artwork gives us a no-holds origin story which has elements of vintage Silver Age Marvel, along with more recent Bronze Age Marvel and a whisper of old Charlton. The book appears to be (and is) a rip-off of Master of Kung-Fu. But the story is really more a clone of the Iron Fist saga with some exploding atomic bombs thrown in to give several folks some superpowers. Two twins survive the blast to be raised by their grandfather in a monastery where one brother grows to become evil (he also was scarred by the blast though he never really looks like it) and the other becomes our hero "Dragon". There's also a villain called Dr.Nhu who corrupts the brother who eventually gets the name Ling the Cobra. It's a complicated story with a few too many elements thrown in. One gets the feeling the script and the art aren't a perfect match, and that the book was drawn with a somewhat different plot. Another detail is that perhaps the Dragon's outfit was originally to have been green. Despite his very MOKF look, one caption describes him as a green figure. I figure that change was made both to take advantage of Shang-Chi's success and avoid too obvious a comparison to Iron Fist. The story ends with an assassination plot foiled and the Dragon vowing to stop his brother. We never find out what happens as this book too ends with its first issue.

And then there's always VICKI #3. 

The wheels are coming off the Atlas-Seaboard machine. The changes are clear attempts to gather market, and much of the line's early character is disappearing to be replaced by less compelling material.

July will see lots of final issues, and even a debut or two. More next month.

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The Patchwork Girl Of OZ!

Frank Baum's plan had been to wrap up the OZ series with the sixth volume in 1910, but the need for money saw him return to the series three years later with The Patchwork Girl of OZ. Since in the last novel he'd sealed the OZ dimension off from the planet Earth, he had to concoct a way to rationalize another tale's creation, so he said he was in telegraph connection with Dorothy, and so had access to new adventures. (I was reminded of the way Edgar Rice Burroughs has the character Jason Gridley is able to use his "Gridley Wave" to make contact with David Innes in Pellucidar to give him more inner world adventures in 1930.) 

The story gives us a new gang of idiots to follow. The core character is a young boy named Ojo the Unlucky who lives with his taciturn uncle in the forests of Munchkin land. They meet up with a magician named Dr. Pipt who is the one who actually made the "Powder of Life" which had animated Jack Pumpkinhead among others in earlier novels. This time the stuff is used to bring to life a girl fabricated from a patchwork quilt, who was intended as a servant. But Pipt's wife and Ojo's uncle are afflicted by stuff that makes them into living statues. 

So, it falls to Ojo, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, a glass cat named Bungle, and a strange cube-shaped critter called the Woozy to trek across OZ to gather the necessary materials to make them well. The group eventually hook up with more familiar denizens of OZ such as the Shaggy Man, the Scarecrow (who cottons to Scraps), and Dorothy and Toto among many others.  

These familiar faces help them with their quest. The highlight of this book is the rambunctious nature of Scraps, who cares little for convention. 

This novel was adapted to silent film in 1914 by Baum himself with his own movie-making outfit, and it is one of only three surviving films from The OZ Film Manufacturing Company, and it was the sole effort by the company to be distributed by Paramount which itself was only a year old.  The Patchwork Girl herself is played by a man (and it shows) robbing the part of the innocent female charm of the book's original. The story also adds a romance angle which only takes up space and Ojo is played by a girl, yet is supposed to be a boy and that switches in the story as well. So, all in all a rather ineffective affair. See it at this link. 

But that said, I did enjoy reading the story and I look forward the next one titled TikTok of OZ. 

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lunius!

I didn't know that I shared a birthday with the late great Neal Adams. He, like myself, was born on D-Day or as it was known before the end of WWII, June the Sixth. I've been celebrating the great artist all year and I'll be doing it again this month in spectacular fashion. I want to go back a decade in the Dojo's history and re-present one of my more enjoyable projects, a detailed reading of the classic Green Lantern and Green Arrow comics by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams. These "relevant" comics really did change the comic book world and are well worth remembering. I'm really looking forward to this read. 

I will return to my weekend readings of the OZ books by L. Frank Baum. I've been enjoying these by and large and look forward to a summer wrapping up the series, at least those written by Baum himself. Also look for a bevy of Baum's OZ-adjacent titles to get a nod. 

I will also try to get in a few more weekend readings of The Adventure of the Phantom novels from Avon Books, reprinted in recent years by Hermes Press. These have proven to be quite exciting. 

In addition, Dojo will feature some Superman, the Son of Krypton. Expect a look at classic Adams work on the Man of Steel as well as some later stuff he did for DC's most important hero. 

I will do the monthly look at Atlas-Seaboard of course, share a spirited collecting project I'm having fun with, bring a long-awaited manhunt to an end, and bring out a very special post for the birthday that I share with one of comic's greatest Neal Adams. (Actually, it has nothing to do with him, but I love saying that.) 

June is usually a delightful month. I hope it is here at the Dojo for one and all. 

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