Tom Palmer, R.I.P.

 Sad to note the passing of comic book artist Tom Palmer at age 81. An artist with over 50 years active in the industry, best known as an inker, often considered one of the definitive inkers over artists like Gene Colan, John Buscema and Neal Adams.

Here are a few samples of the rare examples of Palmer doing full art jobs.

Empire State [2011] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Empire State [2011]

Subtitled "A Love Story (or not)", this is an original 144-page hardcover comic by Jason Shiga, who had previously done BOOKHUNTER and MEANWHILE, but is probably best known now for his subsequent 4-volume epic DEMON.

This is probably his most sedate and "normal" work, pretty much his take on a romantic comedy / coming of age movie narrative of a type more common in movies than in comics (at the time at least, such stories have only become more common in comics in the last decade). 

Overall I'd say this is okay. It really lacks the more audacious and experimental aspects that I like about Shiga's work (though a few bits pop up), but if you take out the expectation of that it's a nice little story with a lot of funny bits and even manages to be touching at times.

The lead of the story is Jimmy, a young man working at an Oakland library, realizing his lack of ambition and inability to grow up, but unable to do anything about it because of said lack of ambition. He's knocked out of his stupor when his friend Sara moves to New York, and he eventually decides to follow her there by bus to make the kind of grand romantic gesture he's learned from movies. Life, as it often is in comics, is not like movies, he finds.

The story is told in two main tracks, flashbacks to a time prior to Sara's departure in red and Jimmy's trip in blue. There are also some scenes that mix colours, which I wasn't sure about the first time I read it, but I'm pretty sure are the future, or maybe a possible future (one features a theatre playing HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 4, which probably appeared imminent when the book came out, but which still doesn't exist, along with two older movies).

So an interesting book. I go to it far less than Shiga's other work (his upcoming ADVENTUREGAME COMICS - LEVIATHAN looks to be great), but it might be a better entryway to his world than the other books.

Captain Britain [1988] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Captain Britain [1988]

This is a collection of seventeen stories of Captain Britain (Brian Braddock) by Alan Davis, the artist most associated with the character, including designing his most famous costume and most of his major supporting cast and villains. These were published in black and white by Marvel UK from 1984-1986.  This book is also published by Marvel UK, but has US/Canadian cover prices and unlike many Marvel UK books was widely available in North America. Davis had been the artist on the feature (created in 1976 by Herb Trimpe and Chris Claremont) through various books from 1981, with various writers. Most of those earlier stories wouldn't be widely available outside the UK and in colour until 1995.

This stretch of issues, concluding Davis' run, are mostly written by Jamie Delano (then breaking into US comics with HELLBLAZER over at DC), with a few issues early and late in the book written by Davis himself and some by Michael Collins (not the astronaut, the Irish revolutionary or Deathlok). Davis does all the art, joined by Mark Farmer inking the last few. As the cover shows, they're reprinted here to take advantage of the new popularity of the characters in America as part of the EXCALIBUR series (for Marvel proper with some once and future X-Men), which Davis had created with Chris Claremont and would do on-and-off until 1993.  Claremont also provides an introduction to this book, while original editor Ian Rimmer provides an "outroduction".

For the most part these are entertaining stories. They suffered greatly at the time from very much being the follow-up stories to a run which wasn't available to me until several years later (in particular the "Jaspers' Warp" storyline written by Alan Moore). Frequent direct references to those stories were lost on me. But the work still manages to hold its own, for the most part (a few middle chapters are a slog).

There are a lot of clever twists in the plot, quite a few funny bits, and Davis' art is always a pleasure to look at.

These stories were eventually included in a few expensive hardcover reprints of both the complete Davis run and the complete run of the character from 1976 until these stories. I thought there was also a more affordable softcover, but apparently not from Marvel proper, only from Marvel UK.

The Originals [2004] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

The Originals [2004]

This is a story created by Dave Gibbons solo, a 154-page story presented as an original hardcover from DC's Vertigo imprint from editor Karen Berger in one of their deviations from the standard formats they were known for, shorter and slightly wider than a standard US comic and with greytones.

I believe this is the only major creator-owned book that Gibbons both wrote and drew. He's most famous, of course, as one of the creators of THE WATCHMEN (the only one, if you believe the screen credits).

This is the story of a young man, Lei, growing up in an era which is a hybrid of 1960s England and some vague future with hover bikes and domed cities. He and his best friend Bok aspire to be part of a stylish bike gang, the Originals, who ride around and pick fights with a rival gang, the Dirt.

This is a pretty decent book. The story itself is a bit light, but it serves the job of giving Gibbons a chance to draw a fully realized world, rendered with precision and with occasional virtuoso flares.

This was reprinted as a softcover a few years later, and in 2018 a new edition from Berger Books was published in a larger format with extensive background material I'm kind of curious to see it, since I always thought the tones in this one seemed to print a shade darker than they should have, and wonder if they were modified for the reprint.

Decoy - Storm Of The Century [2003] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Decoy - Storm Of The Century [2003]

This is a collection of a 4-issue series from 2002, plus some other stuff, created by Decoy creator Courtney Huddleston with writer Buddy Scalera and inker Mostafa Moussa, which was a follow-up to a 1999 series and some one-shots from Penny-Farthing Press.

 

The only other Decoy story I read was a 2002 crossover issue with Mike Kunkel's Herobear series, HEROBEAR AND THE KID AND DECOY - FIELD TRIP #1 [2002], which was intended to be two issues, though only one came out. I liked that enough that when I came across this book (with a Kunkel introduction) a few years later I picked it up. It wasn't immediately obvious from the cover that it's the second book in the series, and the Joe Chiodo cover isn't really indicative of the art inside.

This was a pretty uneven book. The first little bit makes no concessions to those of us coming into the story late, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to a new reader. It picks up a bit in the middle, after a bit of exposition, so I got that Decoy was a shapeshifting alien, estranged from his warlike species, somehow linked with a young cop. It was pretty fun for a bit there, then kind of just finishes without a proper ending. 

Didn't really find a lot of attempts at humour in the script very effective. I did like the art for the most part, but I think I'd have liked it better with a flatter colouring style, with a lot less texture that distracts from the linework.

After the main story there's an origin story for Decoy which has a lot of details that would have been good to know in advance. I'm not sure how much of that is recap of earlier comics and how much is original to this. It's by different creators than the main story, with a very different style.  There are also a dozen pages of pin-ups by various artists active in the indy scene of the time, and a storyboard-style story "Crossing Guard" by Huddleston for a non-existent cartoon.

Looks like there have only been a single one-shot continuing the story since this, which might include the origin story printed here, and some short story collections by other creators.

While I wasn't totally happy with this, I would probably pick up the original mini-series and various one-shots or a collection of them if I came across them. There's something here I like. I also see that there might have been some sort of convention special containing the full HEROBEAR/DECOY crossover. Not sure I'd be able to find it easily, but it's something else to look for.

Barbara [2012] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Barbara [2012]

This is an English translation of Osamu Tezuka's ばるぼら, originally serialized in Japanese from 1973 to 1974. At fifteen chapters and just over 400 pages it's one of Tezuka's shorter works.

It's the story of a writer, Yosuke Mikura, who comes across a strange woman named Barbara at a Tokyo subway station. When he takes her home it starts off a bizarre series of events, as she acts as both a muse and a distraction, sometimes saving him from his own foibles and sometimes leading him on odd journeys.

This is one of those books that I've had for a few years, started a few times, but never got more than a few chapters in before it would go back on the shelf. You have to be in the right headspace for some of Tezuka's more experimental comics, and I guess I never was.

Managed to finish it this time, and I will say, it never goes where you'd expect it to go. It has a lot of interesting twists, and can be quite funny at times, but always a bit strange. I usually attribute a lot of that feeling to my own cultural ignorance. And not just Tezuka's Japanese culture, as the back cover mentions the influence of a French opera, Tales of Hoffman. and I'm too lazy to even read the wikipedia summary of that. But in this case, as in a lot of Tezuka's single volume adult works, I think he's just some kind of weirdo.  But a talented one.

In addition to the comic, this has an introduction by Frederik L. Schodt, which I'll probably read someday when I decide to re-read the book.

Johnny Hazard Quarterly #4 [1987] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Johnny Hazard Quarterly #4 [1987]

The JOHNNY HAZARD comic strip created by Frank Robbins ran from 1944 to 1977, with separate daily and Sunday storylines.  It's an aviation based adventure strip which Robbins began coming off a run on another aviation strip, SCORCHY SMITH, and continued until his retirement.

This reprint series from Toronto's own Dragon Lady Press focused on the Sunday pages, with about a year's worth of pages every issue, starting with the second year of the strip in #1. I'm not sure if there had been a prior reprint of the first year shortly before that or it was skipped for another reason. 

The pages are in black and white, looking really sharp for the most part, probably from syndicate proofs. The first half of the book is presented in a landscape three-tier format, which I think is the most complete version (10 panels per strip). The second half switches to a portrait four-tier format, which I think drops a panel (9 panels per page).

This issue starts in mid-1948 and ends in mid-1949, with two full stories. "Port of Missing Ships" sees our hero's plane drifting into the legendary graveyard of ships in the Sargasso Sea, accompanied by the beautiful Lisbeth Manning and sidekick Cut-Out Keeley. There they find pirates led by Judge Beech Comber and have to make a daring escape involving gunfire, explosions and a modified plane

After that comes "Sucker Fish For Supper", after our heroes are picked up by the submarine of recurring villain Baron Debris, who involves them in an elaborate heist aboard a cruise ship.

A lot of  fun stuff, Robbins is a great artist in the classic Caniff style, with a great eye for details, always keeping the twists coming in the storyline and lightening it up with frequent humour and slapstick fun.

Every issue of the series featured a brand new cover by Alex Toth, with colours by Murphy Anderson Visual Concepts. As a bonus this time, we get a preview of Toth cover to the never-published fifth issue, as the series ended here, which indicates the next storyline would involve dinosaurs.  Just another day on the job for Johnny Hazard...