What Classic Comic Have You Read Lately? Pt. 2

[Paulie]

I've begun the Essentiual Rawhide Kid book, and it's so far been a joy; it'll probably join other Essentials featuring less prominent characters in my list of favorites (Son of Satan, Sgt. Fury, Man-Thing...)

Nice vintage Kirby-Ayers art, with a Don Heck on top of his game and far more suited here than on super-hero stories; Jack Davis and his quirky style, and something of a surprise: prose stories. I suppose Stan wrote those, but I wonder why they're there at all... Could it be because western stories were still pretty popular in the early 60s, and that readers of Rawhide Kid might also have been fans of Louis L'amour and Zane Grey more than devotees of Spider-Man? In any case, they're charming.

Of course, as in any Marvel mag from the early era, the plots don't impress us with their logic... But who cares, as long as the owlhoots get their comeuppance at the end? Ka-Pow! Ka-pow! Crack!

Marvel Westerns are noticeably absent from my collection... and that seems like a glaring omission. My LCS has solid high grade runs of Kid Colt and Rawhide for cheap and this clinches it for me.

You are right about Heck and aren't a lot of these stories by Larry Leiber?

[dan bailey]

something of a surprise: prose stories. I suppose Stan wrote those, but I wonder why they're there at all...

If memory serves, postal regulations required a certain percentage of text content, which meant at least a page of either fiction or letters. I guess the westerns didn't get a sufficient number of the latter. I doubt anything from that era did; I believe I recall reading that one way Stan & Martin realized they had a hit on their hands with the FF was that they actually started receving LOCs

[Francis Dawson]

Been trying lately to read the Epic Comics mini-series Six From Sirius, which I recently picked up in TPB form. I'm finding it really hard going...Paul Gulacy's artwork is, at first glance, gorgeous and highly detailed, but I'm not sure he's really the best sequential artist in the world. He does awfully pretty pictures, but they don't work too well as comic art. On top of that, reading Doug Moench's dialogue is like wading through treacle. It's just so overly verbose.

It's a shame, because I really want to like this series, but I just can't seem to get into it.

I read the follow-up four part mini-series Six from Sirius 2 recently. I'd agree with your comments but I have to say I enjoyed this quite a bit. Felt like Heavy Metal SF lite and I can roll with that.

[Slam_Bradley]

If memory serves, postal regulations required a certain percentage of text content, which meant at least a page of either fiction or letters. I guess the westerns didn't get a sufficient number of the latter. I doubt anything from that era did; I believe I recall reading that one way Stan & Martin realized they had a hit on their hands with the FF was that they actually started receving LOCs

Spot on. The second class mail permit required two prose pages. Stan's first assignment was writing a prose story for Captain America Comics.

[shaxper]

Creepy #6

More clear signs that the title's fan-base is growing. The Captain Comics section is expanded considerably (these ads are half the fun of the comic! Though I still can't understand why they keep using a picture of Nosferatu to advertise a film strip of Dr. Caligari), the Creepy fan club is solicited again, Uncle Creepy even has an official latex mask advertised on the back cover, and, biggest of all, Creepy's sister title, Eerie, is advertised for the first time. That makes TWO horror titles from Warren publishing, alternating with one another so that there is always a Warren horror book each month. Of course, with all this success comes the problem that Archie Goodwin is editing both titles AND scripting nearly every story. I don't see how he can keep up with such a schedule. No wonder he'll be leaving Warren in about two years' time.


"The Thing in the Pit"
art: Gray Morrow
script: Larry Ivie
grade: A-

A stranded businessman ends up taking shelter in a home run by hideous blind mutants who hide their severely deformed sister in a pit in the basement. You can pretty much call the surprise twist of this issue from the moment the sister is mentioned (and the second surprise twist isn't hard to see coming either), but Morrow's disturbing depiction of the mutants and Ivie's all-too natural dialogue, making them seem uncomfortably normal, make this story a success.


"Thumbs Down"
art: Al Williamson
script: Anne T. Murphy
grade: C

A pretty predictable story about a crooked manager for a Roman arena and the gladiator whose freedom and life he toys with. The ghostly payback he receives isn't the least bit surprising nor particularly gratifying, and Williamson's art is competent, but hardly striking. An average story, through and through.


"Adam Link in Business!"
art: Joe Orlando
grade: B-


I find it interesting that the script goes uncredited on this one. Did they do this third Adam Link story without Otto Binder? Perhaps that would explain why it feels so different this time. Adam Link's last minute rescue from the death penalty is handled very abruptly and unrealistically in this story, as if the writer were impatient to get him into a new adventure without wanting to put any real work into considering the how. This time, Adam falls in love with a human girl, tries to deny his feelings, learns she loves him too while his best human friend loves her, and he takes the noble route, retreating from humanity to work on blocking out his human emotions. It's noble, but somehow the whole thing feels very cliche. I suppose it's possible that this almost fifty year old story was the source of the cliche, but I doubt it. The story also didn't do much to help me understand why this woman was in love with a robot. She respected his nobility, but love is more than respect. All in all, this has been the weakest of the Adam Link stories. I wonder if the premise has run its course. His dramatic and wrongful execution would have completed a far more striking and memorable story than this ongoing is proving to be.


"The Cask of Amontillado!"
art: Reed Crandall
adapted by Archie Goodwin
original story by Edgar Alan Poe
grade: B-

Once again, attempting to add something to the greatest horror classics of all time is a recipe for disaster. It takes a certain audacity to believe you can improve a classic. Crandall's art is strong, though it misses many of the subtle details of the story, even showing well lit tunnels when the writing explicitly indicates otherwise. That miter on the ceilings should have been visible and glimmering strangely in near total darkness. No so. Worst yet, Crandall and Goodwin attempt to add a final twist to this story that absolutely does not fit, missing the true and far more subtle twist that Poe put at the end of this story (that Montrasor has been hearing the jingling of Fortunado's bells for nearly fifty years since he killed him). A lot of readers miss that detail at first read, and apparently a first read is all that Crandall and Goodwin gave to this tale.


"The Stalkers"
art: Alex Toth
script: Archie Goodwin
grade: A

Wow. Wildly expressive, haunting artwork and a decent sci-fi twist, all in only five pages. A definite classic.


"Abominable Snowman!"
art: John Severin
script: Bill Pearson
grade: C-

Pretty forgettable story with far too much build-up as a bunch of scientists pursue a tribe of yeti. The final twist barely even counts as a twist, and it doesn't seem that there's anything else to be gained from this story beyond that. Nothing wrong with it, but it drags and fails to entertain.


"Gargoyle"
art: Angelo Torres
script: Goodwin and Krenkel
grade: C+

As Torres' work goes, he's turned in better, but his work is still competent, and this story, in which an alchemist tries to coax the secret of making gold out of a dark sorcerer dwarf who brings gargoyles to life to kill his opponents actually managed to catch me by surprise at the end. I knew the note it would end on, but not how it would get there. Uncle Creepy's odd remark at the end surprised me. I know these titles weren't subject to the comic code, but I still didn't expect Uncle Creepy to make a pun by saying "...don't drink anything to get you STONED!". Wow.



Overall, I felt the quality of this issue was a tad stronger than the previous few, and I'm glad to see Goodwin getting a little more assistance on writing scripts what with a second title about to launch. Still, the series doesn't feel even close to the quality I know it attains much later down the road. However, I'm still absolutely digging reading these!

[benday-dot]

Been trying lately to read the Epic Comics mini-series Six From Sirius, which I recently picked up in TPB form. I'm finding it really hard going...Paul Gulacy's artwork is, at first glance, gorgeous and highly detailed, but I'm not sure he's really the best sequential artist in the world. He does awfully pretty pictures, but they don't work too well as comic art. On top of that, reading Doug Moench's dialogue is like wading through treacle. It's just so overly verbose.

It's a shame, because I really want to like this series, but I just can't seem to get into it.

I tend to agree with your opinions on this series, differing only in regards a wider opinion of Gulacy.

I bought the first issue of this mini-series off the stand way the hell back when, thought it wasn't much, but fully expected it to turn out swell. The thing was I quit comics for twenty years before issue #2 came out. I finally caught up with the rest of the series a couple years back... and found it to be the same dead weight you well describe.

Moench is utterly ponderous in his script and Gulacy can't do much to shine up the turd. But Gulacy has shown previously that he isn't lacking the chops. The work he did with Moench, no less, on Master of Kung-Fu was measure of sequential brilliance. Wholly cinematic and exciting. Clear and dynamic storytelling. Oh well, you can't win them all.

[Slam_Bradley]

Flex Mentallo. Wow! Just wow!

[dan bailey]

"Abominable Snowman!"
art: John Severin
script: Bill Pearson
grade: C-

Pretty forgettable story with far too much build-up as a bunch of scientists pursue a tribe of yeti. The final twist barely even counts as a twist, and it doesn't seem that there's anything else to be gained from this story beyond that. Nothing wrong with it, but it drags and fails to entertain.

Sir! I'm clutching my pearls even as I type (not the easiest thing in the world, mind you) -- you appear to have neglected to account for the salutary effects wrought by the illustrious illustrator of this one*, thereby surely saving it from the salvage heap!



*Which actually I regret to say I don't have on hand to view. I own the first 5 issues in both single-issue & Dark Horse Archives format, as well as a smattering of issues from the next couple or 3 years, but not #6. Yet.

[benday-dot]

Flex Mentallo. Wow! Just wow!

I didn't think much of it on first reading years ago (I borrowed it from a friend and read it rather quickly), certainly not my favourite Morrison work. But I did pick up the just released reprint collection and am looking forward to giving it another shot.

[shaxper]

Sir! I'm clutching my pearls even as I type (not the easiest thing in the world, mind you) -- you appear to have neglected to account for the salutary effects wrought by the illustrious illustrator of this one*, thereby surely saving it from the salvage heap!

As much as I hate to cause undo trauma to your pearls (wow this sounds wrong), I didn't find the art memorable. Good -- you just don't find bad art in Creepy -- but nothing particularly special.

[Slam_Bradley]

I didn't think much of it on first reading years ago (I borrowed it from a friend and read it rather quickly), certainly not my favourite Morrison work. But I did pick up the just released reprint collection and am looking forward to giving it another shot.

I'm still digesting it. Not sold on it being better than the best of Animal Man...but it's awfully darn good.

[dan bailey]

I got the deluxe Flex Mentallo in from Books-a-Million a couple of weeks ago but have been holding off on delving into it, considering how overrated I've found some of his other (somewhat less, I suppose) celebrated works -- the godawful (IMHO, of course) Seaguy & the pretty much impenetrably turgid Marvel Boy come immediately to mind.

Still, as I was reminded yesterday while re-sorting my Vertigo boxes, I really liked Kill Your Boyfriend, just to name one, so here's hoping.

[dan bailey]

you just don't find bad art in Creepy

Oh, just wait maybe 10 more issues ...

[dan bailey]

Wait: Who the heck am I addressing those last couple of comments to? Every indication is that shaxper shuffled off this mortal coil some 4 1/2 hours ago.

I summon the final farewell!

[shaxper]

Wait: Who the heck am I addressing those last couple of comments to? Every indication is that shaxper shuffled off this mortal coil some 4 1/2 hours ago.

I summon the final farewell!

...wait. I'm dead?