Roswell - Little Green Man #1 [1996] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre 

Roswell - Little Green Man #1 [1996]

This is the first of a six issue series created by Bill Morrison, and published by Bongo, one of a handful of non-SIMPSONS comics from the publisher.  Morrison of course had been doing a lot of work on the SIMPSONS comic book series for a few years at this point (and would continue for a long while after).  The feature debuted as a back-up in some SIMPSONS comic before getting its own series.

The lead of course is an alien in the classic LGM form. While the back-ups had him somewhat established on Earth with his supporting cast, this series starts off with an origin story of his arrival on the planet and first encounters with its strange inhabitants.

A very fun little series, it's nice to see something in Morrison's own style without the house-style of the Simpsons on top (although Bongo did a surprisingly good job of sometimes letting individual styles through for a mainstream licensed comic).  A lot of good classic retro designs and background in here.

The original back-ups and first three issues of the series were collected in a 1997 book.

THE DALGODA OMNIBUS by Fujitake & Strnad

 DALGODA was a science fiction adventure comic by Jan Strnad and Dennis Fujitake serialized for a dozen issues from 1984 to 1986, eight issues of DALGODA followed by four issues of FLESH AND BONES, published by Fantagraphics (the latter under their short-lived imprint Upshot Graphics).

It was a well regarded series, with some striking covers.  I came to it late, having heard some good things and seeing ads for it in old comics and fanzines I was buying in the early 1990s.  I can't recall now, but I also might have been interested in the Bojeffries Saga back-ups by Steve Parkhouse and Alan Moore that appear in the last five issues (an original story in DAL #8 and newly coloured reprints from WARRIOR in the second series).  Really enjoyed the first few I read, and over time got the full run.

It's a lot of fun, with Strnad writing a strong character driven piece among epic events, providing a lot of original perspective on classic pulp science fiction, a well thought out story structure and a clear understanding of his characters.  Fujitake has a striking style, mixing in a lot of European influences (most obviously Giraud and Remi among artists best known in North America) plus some classic American comics (quite a bit of Ditko and also some of the classic newspaper adventure strip artists). A very clear and pleasing style, with some great science fiction designs with sophisticated world building.

The series is the story of Dalgoda, a pilot from an alien world where the people resemble dogs and have only made brief contact with Earth. He's sent on a mission to get the help of Earth against a threat from another alien race, forcing him to deal with human politics and prejudices.

I've read the whole thing a few times over the years, and was definitely interested when I heard that About Comics had released THE DALGODA OMNIBUS, a complete collection of the series, with a striking version of the original first issue cover up front.  Re-read it in this form over the last few days, and it still works well, very much as a cohesive book with three acts, some great set-up, a few adventures and an exciting climax which wraps things up while leaving room for a continuation, which we never really got unfortunately.

The reprint is in black and white, which really does look like a whole new book from the original, which was coloured in a style then very sophisticated for American comics.

The first six issues were originally coloured by Kenneth Smith, and for those issues they drop the colours and reproduce the linework only, and it looks very sharp and fresh, really showing off Fujitake's linework better than ever.

The second half was originally coloured by Mark Wheatley and Katheryn Mayer, and for those they use a combination approach to use the colours to create greytone shading in some areas while completely suppressing the colours to leave it open for the linework in others.  It works quite well compared to many comics which are reproduced from printed comics, suffering only in comparison to the front half of the book. Some of the colour effects are more integral to the storytelling in these pages, so the pure black&white might have felt off, and it's clearly a thoughtful approach about how to handle each image rather than a blanket approach.

Also included are two short stories, one published during the original run as a promotional back-up in another book and a second (with art by Kevin Nowlan) published a few years later in an anthology and providing a brief coda to the story.  Strnad provides a three page afterword with some reflections on series forty year later and there's a gallery of a dozen pages of additional images by Fujitake from the 1980s, including fanzine covers, promotional art and more.

Highly recommended for both old fans and for anyone new to the worlds of Dalgoda.

Publisher's site

Paperback ‏ : ‎ 359 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1949996824

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1949996821

The Atlantis Chronicles #4 [1990] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

The Atlantis Chronicles #4 [1990]

This is the middle of an epic seven double-sized issue series by Esteban Maroto and Peter David published by DC in 1990.  It establishes some detailed backstory for the long-running Aquaman feature at DC, although for the most part stands independent of that stuff until late in the final issue.  It seems to be setting up a new Aquaman series by David, although for whatever reason it ended up taking over three years for David's AQUAMAN TIME AND TIDE mini-series and the subsequent on-going book (which he would write for four years) to come out, referring heavily to this series (TIME AND TIDE even begins with Aquaman reading the last few pages of the last issue).

This was a very entertaining story. I usually like Peter David in general, but it was good to see him do something a bit more outside his comfort zone, especially a setting where he can't do as many of the pop-culture jokes that he tends to sprinkle in his stories.  

Spanish artist Esteban Maroto draws the whole series, and does a pretty spectacular job, drawing some high fantasy in fanciful settings, some interesting ways of capturing the underwater movement of the characters effectively and drawing generations of characters in a distinct way.  Very unlike your typical DC work of the era.

This issue right in the middle is full of all sorts of twists involving rival factions in a generational war, supernatural elements affecting the fate of nations, sex, violence and all that stuff.  

In addition to the 43-page story, there's a two page text which is written from the point of view that these comics are based on actual recently discovered documents, this time discussing the religious beliefs of the characters.

Showcase Presents Retrospective - What should have been

So, 124 books is a lot, but what are the biggest gaps in DC's SHOWCASE PRESENTS line?

I'm going to restrict this comics DC published in colour from 1954 to 1975.  Which leaves DOC SAVAGE out in so many ways.  So basically what should we have seen rather than the DOC SAVAGE book that sticks out like a sore thumb?*

[*and yes, I know in my head that publishing reality is we probably would have gotten no book that month if they decided to not publish the SHOWCASE PRESENTS DOC SAVAGE book, or not brand it as a SHOWCASE.  But my heart tells me it replaced something I'd have preferred]

And yes, this list is essentially a wishlist for what the new DC FINEST line of colour reprints could feature, although the the 1954 to 1975 range is even less of a constraint for that line than it was for the SHOWCASE line.

I'll start with the two most obvious gaps.  In DC's colour hardcover ARCHIVES line (1989-2014), almost every line that would have qualified under the criteria above (so discard the many pre-1954 DC lines, the one post-1975 DC line (NEW TEEN TITANS) and the lines inherited/licensed from outside (SPIRIT, ELFQUEST, MAD, ACTION HEROES, THUNDER AGENTS)) got at least one SHOWCASE PRESENTS book*, some of them more than one extending far beyond what was reprinted in the ARCHIVES.

[*the relevant Archives lines were ADAM STRANGE, AQUAMAN, ATOM, BATMAN:THE DYNAMIC DUO, BLACKHAWK, BRAVE AND THE BOLD TEAM-UP, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, DOOM PATROL, ENEMY ACE, FLASH, GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, METAL MEN, SGT. ROCK, SILVER AGE TEEN TITANS, SUPERGIRL, SUPERMAN:THE MAN OF TOMORROW, SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE, WONDER WOMAN:THE AMAZON PRINCESS, WORLD'S FINEST COMICS]

The first and most important exclusion, to the surprise of no one looking at older posts here, is Sheldon Mayer's SUGAR & SPIKE.  98 issues, starting in 1956 and running to 1971.  Since the invention of the humour comic, there have been five comics that were rated the most funny, the most creative. This one left them all behind.  

Posts about Mayer's work, if you're interested.  

Anyway, tragic that we didn't get at least one SHOWCASE volume of this series.  There would have been enough material for at least four, only counting the main feature comics and covers from the original run.  You could stretch that to five by including the activity features and later Sugar & Spike comics by Mayer (most never published in English, and even most of those that were only published in small digest size).  We did get the one ARCHIVES volume, which reprinted the first ten issues, which is better than nothing, but far from the ideal format for the material.  The SHOWCASE format is also far from ideal, but not as far...

The next exclusion among the ARCHIVES opens up a whole other line of possibilities.  There were two volumes of Jack Kirby's KAMANDI series in 2005 and 2007, which had the first 20 of Kirby's 40 issues of the series. Those same 20 eventually were put in the 2011  hardcover book KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH BY JACK KIRBY Vol. 1 book, which was followed up by a Vol 2 the next year, finishing the essential part of the run (it continued for a while beyond Kirby). The run also got a later one-volume hardcover and two-volume softcover release. So don't cry for Kam, he got some reprint representation, just not in black&white.  Except the two Artist's Editions.  And some people consider that series a failure...

But while his 1950's DC work was well represented in the SHOWCASE line (Challengers and Green Arrow, plus some short mystery stories in either their original series or as reprints of reprints), Kirby's 1970-1976 stint at DC was very unrepresented, just one story of "Atlas" incongruously  stuck in the weird GREAT DISASTER book they published (which had some post-Kirby KAMANDI issues).  That's a five year run of almost 3500 pages of some of the best comics ever (The Fourth World, The Demon, the aforementioned Kamandi, OMAC, The Losers and more), a lot of it inked by Kirby's best inker, Mike Royer, which would look amazing in black and white.  Obviously almost all that stuff did get colour reprints in that era and beyond (and even some black&white&grey reprints in an earlier decade.  Post about those to come), in some fine formats (but with room for improvement), but not getting at least one 1970s Kirby book in the SHOWCASE PRESENTS format just seems like a wasted opportunity.  Personally I would have liked to see, though the SHOWCASE line didn't do this kind of curation, a "Best of 1970s Kirby" sampler, with one or two choice stand-alone issues of each series to fill a 500-page book.

And this is probably the best place to mention the unreleased announced SHOWCASE which would fit in here, SHOWCASE PRESENTS BEWARE THE CREEPER.  Read more about it here.  Steve Ditko is also under-represented in the SHOWCASE line, with just a few pages in the aforementioned GREAT DISASTER book, but his work for DC in the qualifying era is limited.  What would have been in the CREEPER book, three issues with THE HAWK AND THE DOVE, four issues of STALKER and some short stories.  Of course we did eventually see most of Ditko's work for DC in this era and after in some colour hardcovers, and will again (hopefully complete this time) next year in one big hardcover.

Two of those Ditko short stories do bring up another entry for this list.  In 1973 editor Joe Orlando launched PLOP, which was, as promised on the covers, DC's "new magazine of weird humor".  Sort of a spin-off of Orlando's mystery books of the era (using a lot of the same hosts (Cain & Abel, Eve) and creators), but a unique entry in DC's publishing, as seen by the weird gallery of covers by mostly Basil Wolverton (occasionally Wallace Wood) for the first few years. The series lasted until 1976, 24 issues, and has some great work by Bernie Wrightson, Sergio Aragones, Alfredo Alcala and many more.  Including, in #16, a Steve Ditko job inked by Wallace Wood.  Ditko and Wood also did another job for PLOP, unpublished until later.

Unlike some of the other entries above, there hasn't been a decent reprint of PLOP in any other format, making the lack of a SHOWCASE even worse.  This work would have looked amazing in that format (as the other Orlando edited books of the era do), and deserve to be seen again.  Hopefully someday soon.

DC's war books were, somewhat surprisingly, very well represented in the SHOWCASE PRESENTS line.  

13 pure war books, then WEIRD WAR TALES is a partial (it started in the Kubert editorial offices with a mix of new and reprint stories and moved to Orlando's mystery side after a few issues) and SEA DEVILS is war adjacent (initially from the Kanigher offices and written by him and drawn by Russ Heath). And yet somehow they only scratched the surface.  

In addition to possible additional volumes of many of those series, which would have great work (Heath on ROCK, Glanzman on TANK, Kirby on LOSERS) and many more volumes of standalone war stories like the OUR ARMY book.  CAPT. STORM headlined 18 issues of his own book, losing who knows how many wooden legs.  If that's not enough, his fellow future Losers Johnny Cloud and Gunner&Sarge ran for years in ALL-AMERICAN MEN OF WAR and OUR FIGHTING FORCES respectively.  So you could easily fill in a book of BEFORE LOSERS or something less ridiculously titled.  

You also have various short run features which might not fill a book but could be combined in some way.  Mademoiselle Marie, Balloon Buster, Captain Hunter, Hunter's Hellcats, Fighting Devil Dog.  Surely something could be done to combine them into a book. LESSER THAN THE LOSERS seems a bit mean and not totally fair...

While PLOP was DC's big 1970s weird humour book, less weird humour was a big part of their line in the 1950s and 1960s.  I'll just note in passing some books which might have licensing constraints (though deals can be made, and they did it for frickin' DOC SAVAGE).  Long runs of BOB HOPE (109 issues), JERRY LEWIS (with DEAN MARTIN for 40 issues than solo over twice as long), THE FOX AND THE CROW (108 issues plus hundreds of stories in other books).  Books I'm only mildly familiar with, but which seem to have their fans.

More to the point, DC's in-house funny animals were a thriving business for a while.  While they mostly wound up by 1960s (except the aforementioned FOX&CROW), from 1944 to 1960 they were a vital part of DC's line.  In 1954 alone I count over 60 issues, almost 20% of what DC published, in titles like REAL SCREEN COMICS, PETER PORKCHOPS, LEADING SCREEN COMICS, FLIPPITY & FLOP, PETER PANDA, FUNNY STUFF, MOVIETOWN'S ANIMAL ANTICS, HOLLYWOOD FUNNY FOLKS, COMIC CAVALCADE, DODO AND THE FROG, RACCOON KIDS and NUTSY SQUIRREL, so you could definitely have filled some books.  The gold standard probably would have been a THREE MOUSEKETEERS collection, collecting the 26-issue series that ran from 1956 to 1960, initially by the aforementioned Sheldon Mayer and later with art by Rube Grossman.

Also on the humour front, I'm less familiar with the other DC books of the period, which are mostly in the teen humour category that most people would associate with Archie Comics.  Long running titles like BUZZY, A DATE WITH JUDY and LEAVE IT TO BINKY.  Of course my choice for a reprint would have been SCRIBBLY by Sheldon Mayer (I'm nothing if not one note) but the 1948-1952 series run places it outside the parameters.

Westerns weren't as big at DC as they were at some other publishers, but they had their share.  Two of the later day ones were represented in the extant SHOWCASE line, a slim volume of BAT LASH and two big books of JONAH HEX. But through the 1950s they ran two western titles with the on-the-nose titles of WESTERN COMICS and ALL-STAR WESTERN (plus the licensed HOPALONG CASSIDY and back-ups in other comics), featuring a lot of work by artists like Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino and Howard Sherman on characters like Johnny Thunder, Trigger Twins and Pow Wow Smith.

Going back further from traditional westerns, one of DC's longest running series to never have a decent reprint is TOMAHAWK, which ran from 1950 to 1972, for the most part set during the American Revolution (the last part of the run features Hawk, Son of Tomahawk, which is closer to a traditional western comics setting).  Haven't read too much of it, but it looks like there were some wild adventures, and artwork by Fred Ray, Bob Brown and Bruno Premiani.

And let's go back further still for some historical fiction in the early run of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD.  Long before it was a Batman team-up title, the first 24 issues of B&B focused on historical adventure stories, with the Viking Prince on the north seas, the Golden Gladiator in the Roman Empire, the Silent Knight in the days of King Arthur and (later) Robin Hood a few centuries later.  All with art by Joe Kubert, Irv Novick, Russ Heath and others.  Perfect length for one big single volume collection, too.  The Viking Prince did get one nice colour reprint, but the rest haven't.

I'll close a super-hero feature, a category that the SHOWCASE PRESENTS had no shortage of, and unlike the Ditko and Kirby features above one that still hasn't seen a reprint in another format.  I am of course talking about THE INFERIOR FIVE.  Appearing in three issues of SHOWCASE in 1966 and then ten issue of their own comic from 1967 to 1968, this was a humour comic about a group of second generation heroes with mostly ineffective powers running into parodies of other characters and wacky villains.  Created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Joe Orlando, later drawn by Mike Sekowsky and Win Mortimer.  There was just enough for a nice slim volume.

Of course that just scratches the surface of what could have been possible in the SHOWCASE PRESENTS line, and hopefully will be possible in the DC FINEST line.  What would you have liked to see?

Showcase Presents Retrospective - The Inevitable Errata

Okay, if you've read this weblog for a while you know I've got this thing, some would say obsession, for errors in comic books, in particular errors in reprints.  And the Showcase Presents line, well, you can't publish over 60,000 pages without making a few mistakes, and I can even excuse a few of them given the low price of the line.  The bar for forgiveness of an error in a $15 book is way lower than for a $150 book.  But no reason not to document them...

Which, by the way, DC themselves did for a while, they have a whole page devoted to Errata for their books, which I've talked about before.  They don't seem to have updated it much beyond the initial entries well over a decade ago, and sometimes it's hard to find on their site, but it's there.  In case it gets hard to find again, here are their entries for the Showcase Presents line.

Showcase Presents Collections

Showcase Presents: Batman Vol. 1

The art on pages 22-36, 37-48, 50-64, 82-93, 94-106, 108-122, 124-135, 136-147, 174-188 and 190-213 was pencilled by Sheldon Moldoff, not Bob Kane.

Showcase Presents: Metal Men Vol. 1

The story from The Brave And The Bold #55 was written by Bob Haney, not the artists Ramona Fradon and Charles Paris.

Showcase Presents: Metamorpho Vol. 1

Ramona Fradon was the cover artist on Metamorpho #5-8.

Showcase Presents: Superman Vol. 1

Al Plastino was the both penciller and inker on all the stories from Action Comics #251-252 and Action Comics #254-255.

Showcase Presents: Superman Family Vol. 2

On page 6, Table of Contents: "The Girl of 100 Costumes", should have Al Plastino listed as sole artist.

On to my list.  Just a basic list for now.  I noticed a handful of other errors as I was reading them over the years, but (uncharacteristically) didn't make precise note of them.

The biggest mistake I know of was one they actually fixed, and got its own post here.  To summarize, some pages were missed up in SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN FAMILY Vol 2 back in 2008.  A correct edition, only distinguishable from the incorrect one by the correction and the logo colour on the cover, was issued a few weeks later.  If you ever look for it, you want the white and red logo, not the yellow and red.

Another error is related to one I first noticed in a 1983 British reprint of  DC COMICS PRESENTS #29 [1981].  A problem with lettering printed in colour rather than black ink led to some missing dialogue from the Almighty.  Also a hastily redrawn Supergirl headshot.

Somehow this was still a problem when they got around to including it in SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE SPECTRE Vol 1 in 2012, at least for one of the problem pages (the other two seem fine).  They got a second bite at the apple the next year in SHOWCASE PRESENTS DC COMICS PRESENTS - THE SUPERMAN TEAM-UPS Vol 2.  Let's see how they did by comparing the two books:

Well, that's much better.  Now to just photocopy the correct one onto the correct paper stock and carefully paste it into the SPECTRE book.

This next one is less a mistake than it is an interesting choice, and maybe even a rare correction from an earlier mistake.

As you can see the AMBUSH BUG Showcase from 2009 used the cover for ACTION COMICS #565 [1985].  Good choice, but someone also made a choice to colour the skin of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman green (most noticeable on WW, of course). Now, what I wonder is, was that supposed to be the joke Giffen intended in the original, finally restored 24 years later?  Or was this an entirely new bonus joke added for this book, at no additional cost to you, the reader? I guess only Irwin Schwab can answer that...

This is of course an evolving list.  Anything you think should be included, let me know at bobh1970 at gmail dot com