Archive for May, 2007
This one’s for Andy. While surfing through one of Beau Smith’s columns, I came across this picture:
“Central City Comics. Columbus, Ohio. 1989. They set a manly stage for my store signing.”
Andy, were you working at the store during that time?
What if #11
“What If The Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become The Fantastic Four?” The title seems a bit redundant, since Stan and Jack obviously had super powers to begin with. Any excuse to get Jack Kirby to do another Fantastic Four story, however. Sure, I covered Kirby recently; is anyone going to complain? An early FF establishes the real-world setting of the series by having Doc Doom set a trap by holding Stan and Jack hostage and forcing them to call Reed Richards about a fake story conference. Jack makes it even more real with this issue, giving us actual comic creators as the FF.
In this offering from Marvel’s alternate reality series, Stan Lee has taken the place of Reed Richards, bullpen secretary Flo Steinberg fills in for Susan Storm, former Marvel VP Sol Brodsky flames on, and Jack himself dishes out the clobbering. It seems the Skrulls hatched a plan to mutate the population of Earth, and their initial experiment involved setting off a cosmic ray device at Marvel Headquarters. In this strange parallel Earth, the quartet chronicled the exploits of their fictional counterparts while they regularly saved the world in secret. Here they are gathered in Stan’s office (their leader sans moustache in his younger days), shortly before the fateful event that cursed them with strange abilities…
“A toy owl.” Stan kills me even when Jack’s the one doing the writing.
As if anyone cares about the story behind the wonderfully ridiculous premise: the FF are tracking a series of cosmic-ray mutants in hopes of finding the villains behind the plot, as well as a way to reverse their own condition. The story opens on the dread Island of Doctor Murrow and moves on to Atlantis, where they hope Namor’s undersea technology will be able to provide some leads.
The idea for the premise was editor Roy Thomas’, but he got bumped as the Torch in favor of Brodsky when Jack took over. The Stan Lee persona dominates the book, and Jack proves himself to be a helluva humor writer. As for Jack’s variation on The Thing: if there was ever any doubt which of his characters Jack himself identified with, the Kirby Thing sounds pretty much the same as the Bashful Benjamin model.
Back in the day, the bullpen passed itself off as a bunch of regular guys (“Genial” Gene, “Our Pal” Sal, “Jazzy” Johnny, “Sturdy” Steve, even “Smilin’” Stan), rather than posing as rising superstar artist rock stars. While the former may itself have been just as calculated, it’s still a lot more down to earth, and didn’t feed into a certain sickness that drives much of the collecting community in the present. It’s cool that in the days when Marvel was the young upstart, even the lady that sits in the office opening the mail was well known enough to warrant a place on the “real-life” Fantastic Four.Let’s make this week a challenging one again…
(click image to WTFerize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007)
BLACK / MCCLURG DRAW OFF
Mr. McClurg and I just finished up our dailies draw off.
First person not to post for the day is the loser.
The competition has come to an end but there are lots of
great images over on our Live Journal sites.
I’d like to do another one soon. Any theme requests?
Slate.com has an article today called, Spider-Man Gets All Emo: Does the sunny superhero really need a dark side?
I’m not really up on emo — or Spider-Man, for that matter. But I thought there was always a fair amount of overlap between the two things?
I listen to Slate.com when it comes to the War in Iraq, but their stuff on comix usually sucks.
Silver Surfer: Judgment Day graphic novel
According to the story I read ages ago, Stan Lee had pitched a Fantastic Four plot to Jack Kirby in which the FF “fought God.” When the artwork arrived on Stan’s desk to script, he was surprised to see a figure on a surfboard cruising through space to make way for the main threat. Jack’s logic was that any god needed to have someone to fill the role of prophet—or herald. Given his fetish for odd modes of transportation—the cosmic surfboard, Death on skis—I wonder what cosmic being Jack would have given us on a Segway.
The Silver Surfer was very much Jack’s baby, but it was Stan who made him the overwrought philosopher I know and love. My first encounter with the character was in the pages of the Marvel’s Greatest Superhero Battles compilation; somewhere between the first Hulk/Thing throwdown and Namor pummeling Iron Man was the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer vs. Thor battle from Norrin Radd’s fourth issue. Not to take due credit from Jack, but it’s Buscema that I most associate with the character. (Yes, this is the third time Big John has found his way into the WBM; just wait until I get around to “Sal Buscema month.”)
At about the same time as the Epic Comics 2 issue mini Stan wrote with Moebius, we “old school” fans got a treat in the form of a “lost issue” of the Lee /Buscema series, courtesy of the Judgment Day graphic novel. At a time when Steve Englehart and Ron Lim were making the Surfer one of Marvel’s more pedestrian characters in his revived series, this gift was much needed.
The idea for this was was John Buscema’s; an oversized hardcover 64-page graphic novel consisting of nothing but splash pages. The format makes it tough to present as sequential illustration; it reads more like a series of snapshots, with Stan’s prose ably bridging the pages to make the narrative flow (even that late in the game, the Smilin’ one still had it, and Stripperella was a distant speck on the horizon). The experiment pays off with some of the most beautiful artwork of Buscema’s career and Stan bringing his “A” game.
Here’s the plot: The Surfer has befriended Galactus’ newest herald Nova, and assured himself that she is guiding the space god only to uninhabited planets to feed. Nova falls under Mephisto’s influence, however, and believes herself to be in love with Galactus. Suddenly she serves him blindly, taking him to a series of populated planets, as we see Galactus destroy everything from militant cultures to a planet of ewoks.
Alarmed when he notices a growing population of galactic refugees, the Surfer tracks down Nova and a fight breaks out. Before the conflict concludes Galactus steps in and, deciding he’s had it with bickering heralds, confines both of them to a dead planet. An anguished Surfer contemplates a universe at the mercy of Galactus’ appetite, untempered by a guiding conscience. That’s when Mephisto shows up, offering to release the heralds in order to stop Galactus—if only the Surfer signs on the dotted line. Weighing his soul against the entire universe, the Surfer agrees.
Unfortunately, Mephisto invokes the old “I didn’t say when you could stop Galactus” clause, taking the Surfer straight to the underworld to get some torture out of the way first. The Surfer declares the contract void, but isn’t really in a position to negotiate. Nova contacts Galactus and tells him what’s been going on, and Galactus decides that no one screws with Galactus’ heralds but Galactus. The angry space god tracks Mephisto to the underworld, and when the battle seems to be ending in a draw, he changes tactics and starts to devour Hell. Lesson: do not f*ck with Galactus. A cowed Mephisto releases his captive, and they live happily ever after.
In closing, let us recite together the Surfer’s Creed:
Here you go, aspiring sequential-artist types:
“ATTENTION ALL SEQUENTIAL ARTISTS: Boom! Studios is launching an artist search for their expanding line of comic book projects based on Games Workshop’s immensely popular Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 games….At the moment, our growth is outpacing our ability to find suitable artists for the books…Artists should submit via email 3-5 pages of sequential artwork, along with contact information, to boom.artist.search@gmail.com.”
More details here.
Via boingboing comes this link to Ethan Persoff’s site, where he has scanned an article from the 1970s magazine Aramco World about DC comics translated into Arabic. Clark Kent is localized into Nabil Fawzi (which according to a boingboing reader roughly translates into Noble Victory,) and the publisher changed the sound effects as well:
And yet another reason why Batman is the coolest superhero of all: his logo looks spiffy in any language:
In an old radio program, Rudy Giuliani goes postal on a ferret enthusiast.
I’d like to see a movie starring only underrated actors.
Ryan Reynolds headlines, with Robert Forster in the No. 2 lead. Pam Grier costars. Donal Logue is the fast-talking sidekick, alongside Marc Ruffalo as the sensitive lover type. Andre Braugher comes along to add some fire to the mix.
Cameo by Jeremy Piven, who is rapidly (and rightfully) becoming too big for this movie.
Stanley Tucci or Oliver Platt as the villain, alongside Kim Coates. Yeah, I said it. Kim Coates.
David Caruso used to be in this movie, but I think he’s rated pretty correctly these days.
I know I’m forgetting someone. Can somebody help me out with this one?