William Horberg

The Many Faces Of Steve Ditko

 

 

 

 Before his seminal work on Spiderman and Dr. Strange, the comic book artist Steve Ditko started out in the 1950's drawing stories for lesser known publishers such as Ajax/Ferrell, Gilmore, Prize, Timor and mostly Charlton Comics.

A new book called Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 collects much of this early work and reprints it nicely.

He certainly had a knack for faces, and for extreme close-ups and under-lighting.

The EC influence is evident, but it was an influence that most of his generation was under at the time, and it seems like he had has own unique and distinct style from the time he picked up his pen.

william

 
 
 

 
 

Calling All Monsters!!!

What do Zzutak, Rorgg, The Glob and The Blip have in common?

Besides being Really Obscure Monsters from minor comic books, they were all drawn by comic book artist Frank Johnson. 

And they can all be found at MonsterBlog, a site dedicated to the excavation and preservation of those less-heralded and typically despised or merely misunderstood villainous creatures necessary for the plot of most science-fiction themed comic books.

How does one make a good monster? Clearly, doubling down on your consonants was almost always a good idea for a name. 

But why did some rate the singular title "THE" and others not? Were there so many Zzutak's that it couldn't be known as THE ZZUTAK? 

Only Frank Johnson knows for sure, and he's not talking!

But the fans are, down at the MonsterBlog. Check it out!

If you have your own favorite really obscure monsters with lots of consonants in their name, please send them in and I'll post them here too!

william

King Kirby

I was happy to see Jack "King" Kirby back in the news this week. His estate has filed a lawsuit against Disney, Marvel and most of the other major studios who have been involved with producing movies based on some of the iconic characters that he created or co-created like Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, The Silver Surfer and Thor  while working for decades under the onerous terms then and now available to most comic book artists.

It's the typical story of many of the artists, musicians, writers, and illustrators who created much of popular culture of the 20th Century while laboring under exploitive relationships with the producers, manufacturers, publishers and distributors of their artistic output.

I wonder if he had something like that on his mind when he wrote and illustrated this character sketch (which I have doodled a copy of below) and the accompanying philosophical musing that was his stock in trade for his larger than life, mythological-scale storytelling.

Kirby was one of the most prolific and influential artists in the history of comic books, and drew many of the characters and books that I followed and collected growing up. 

I still remember the ripple of excitement in the Nettlehorst Elementary schoolyard when the first issue of his series The New Gods made its debut appearance on the metal rack at the local candy store across the street (it was February 1971 and I was in 7th grade).

There is now a Kirby museum and a couple of excellent new oversize books - KIrby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier, and The Best of Simon and Kirby, featuring stunning reproductions of his artwork and telling the inside story of his career in comics.

A giant in his field, who drew some of the most muscular and dynamic action ever put on the page, I wouldn't bet against his estate as they take on The New Gods of the 21st Century, the media corporations that own and massively profit from his original creations.

william

The First Graphic Novel

I picked up a copy of "It Rhymes With Lust" the other day, not only to find out "what" exactly rhymes with "lust" (of course I assumed it was "bust", but it turned out to be the femme fatale lead characters name of "Rust"), but also because it was billed as "the first graphic novel".

Closer examination of the history of comic books and illustrated art might find competition to the claim (I am a huge fan of the woodcut novels of artist Lynn Ward, for instance), but the publisher makes the point that this book was the first to tell a full book length story with panels and dialogue balloons in a recognizable comic art style.

And what made that style recognizable was one of the more interesting surprises to me. As demonstrated by this captivating cover, the artist had a real flair for drawing women, and not just typical Good Girl Art, but women with real personality and distinct style - individuals.

The artist's name was Matt Baker, and his bibliography is full of some of the most commercial, all-white Teen Romance comic books that came to define 1950's youth culture. 

And yet Matt Baker was a black man, who was born in North Carolina in 1921, grew up in Pittsburgh, and moved to New York to study art at Cooper Union before joining the Jerry Iger studio, one of the early shops that supplied art from mostly anonymous artists to the comics publishing houses.

In racist 1940's America this anonymity turned out to serve Baker well. He was one of the few African-American artists in that trade, and he worked constantly as his reputation as the finest artist to draw women spread from his early work on "Sheena of the Jungle" to "Phantom Lady", "Tiger Girl", "Sky Girl" and other strips.

I'd love to read a real biography of this mostly forgotten man, as the few sketches I have found about him make him out to be a real player, a Harlem dandy of fine dress and, of course, a ladykiller.

Sadly, he died of a heart attack in his sleep in 1959 at the age of 38.

But his work lives on, and it was cool that they reprinted this seminal early example of the graphic novel and we can learn about Matt Baker's role in shaping one our most enduring and ever popular forms of storytelling.

william

Not Your Father's Comic Books

From the Sunday funnies to the Daily Newspaper Strips to the EC, DC and Super-Hero comic books of my childhood, comic art was the ultimate disposable medium.

The Vault of Horror, Sgt. Rock, Peanuts, Teen Romance, Archie, B.C., Black Bolt and the Inhumans, Classics Illustrated, Nancy and Sluggo, Doctor Strange, Big George, Steve Canyon, King Kirby, Wally Wood and Frank Frazetta. Pen and ink drawings, lines on paper that conjured up vast universes of imagination and humor, and were consumed, traded around, and quickly forgotten.

I think I went to my first comic book collector's swap meet in the basement of a bank way way west on Lawrence Avenue on a quiet Sunday morning sometime in the late 60's. It took me hours to get there and back on the CTA (Chicago Transportation Agency) bus. And it took me longer to concoct the b.s. story I told my Mom about where I was going and who I was going to be with.

Ten bucks was a fortune to me back then, weeks of work on the Belmont Avenue paper route to net the cash I needed to travel out to the show, and to purchase the books I coveted. I still have the copy of Superman #5 that I bought that day, as a treasured memento from my youth, and also as a glorious reminder of W.C. Field's prophetic maxim that there is a Sucker Born Every Minute.

I hung on to this fragile comic book for decades, convinced that I had a collector's item as valuable as any Mickey Mantle rookie card, a pop culture treasury bond that I would some day bequeath to my number one son. But when I went to get this particular book graded and preserved by the CGC a few years back, I found out that there were a few pages missing from the middle of the book, which made it nearly worthless.

Oh well, still pretty cool to have.

This year I went to the annual Comic Book Convention in San Diego and there were over 125,000 people there in this giant convention hall on the waterfront. Geeks dressed up in character, fanboys, bloggers, artists, regular joes, giant media corporations, movie stars, writers, directors, illustrators, agents, mom and pop stores and international toy manufacturers. What happened?

The cultural ascendancy of comic books, games, toys, characters, what the Major Hollywood studios now refer to as Branded Entertainment has mirrored this Golden Age of Escapism we now live in. The mirror that was the Silver Screen and which reflected back to us our social, political, psychological, racial, sexual and cultural anxieties has turned into more of a Portal, a one-way ticket to another dimension.

"Check your brain at the door" is one of the most popular expressions bruted without irony to describe the goal and the experience of mainstream entertainment.

But no system exists without counterbalancing forces, and along with the rise of comic book culture has come another phenomenom - the emergence of the so-called Graphic Novel as a medium of serious artistic endeavor and expression. Dan Clowes. Chris Ware. Art Spiegelman. Seth. Eddie Campbell. Alan Moore. Frank Miller. These are some of the guys whose work commands essays in the New York Times and reviews from literary critics.

For my money, two of the most interesting Graphic Novels I have read recently are:

American Born Chinese by Gene Yang

This simple, beautifully drawn story is a deeply felt tale of assimilation and cultural identity. It weaves together three distinct story lines in a thrilling narrative that culminates in a theatrical revelation that is both surprising and profound. Great storytelling.

and:

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

Another imaginatively structured narrative that slyly unfolds as a son reluctantly searches for his estranged and perhaps missing Father, who may or may not have been the victim of a suicide bombing attack in Israel. Great moody drawings, silent panels, poetic effects. The ending is slightly abrupt and inconclusive for my taste, but the world was so vivid and real and subtle that I really appreciated the experience of reading this.

A long way from PastePot Pete or Silver Surfer or The Ancient One or some of my other childhood faves, but life is change, and this new wave of graphic novel writers and artists are producing some really cool work.

william