CROSSFIRE - HOLLYWOOD HERO by Evanier/Spiegle

CROSSFIRE is an interesting comic book about the cast of a cable news program where they take complex political issues and dumb them down to a simple left/right split and yell a lot. While I appreciate the effort going into creating the Novak character, one of the greatest villains in comics history, I'm afraid my suspension of disbelief just didn't extend to cover Tucker Carlson. I mean, what was that all about...

Oh, sorry, wrong CROSSFIRE...

CROSSFIRE was a comic by Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle, published by Eclipse in the 1980s as a spin-off of Evanier and Will Meugniot's DNAGENTS. It starred Jay Endicott, a bail bondsman working in the Hollywood area, who found himself with the costume and identity of Crossfire, a thief who specialized in stealing information. Endicott decides to use that identity in the pursuit of justice.

The series ran 26 issues (plus some spin-offs) from 1984 to 1988, and generally got better as it went along, especially as the more fanciful super-heroics were downplayed for more down-to-earth plotlines. However, the early issues were good as well, and the first five issues (along with the first story from WHODUNNIT, one of the spin-offs) were recently collected in a book published by About Comics.

The Dan Spiegle artwork is a real treat. Spiegle's been in the comic business for decades, always doing great work, and it's a shame so little of it has ever been reprinted. He was a great fit for this book, since it required a variety of faces and body types for its characters, like casting a movie with character actors, and he excels in drawing faces that seemed lived in, like they had stories that go far past what we see in these pages, whether it's the young acting hopeful or the big-shot movie producer or second-rate stand-up comedian. Plus he does a great job of drawing real streets and buildings for the Hollywood locations.

And of course Evanier knows all those character types and locations as well, and writes them as well as Spiegle draws them. While fanciful and action based, you get the feeling that there's a basis in reality to the stories in this volume.

There are four complete stories in this book, and my favourite of them is "The Spotlight", a single-issue story from CROSSFIRE #5. It features the story of a third-rate Don Rickles type stand-up comedian, and his attempts to get on TV, which intersect with Crossfire through a contract out on the life of a mobster from the previous story. It's a very well constructed story, with some imaginative twists, some interesting characters and a great pay-off at the end.

You can read more about CROSSFIRE on this page from Mark Evanier's site, and head over here for links to order this book, the DNAGENTS book and other Evanier writing.

EC - Man and Superman (Kurtzman)

One of the regular features of this weblog will be short comments on various EC comics stories of the 1950s. At a rate of one per week it should take me about 20 years to get through them all. So, y'know, more than one per week might be prudent...

Man and Superman
by Harvey Kurtzman
Weird Science #6 (1951)

An amusing story about Niels and Charlemange, an atomic scientist and his body-builder brother-in-law. Beginning with a version of the infamous Charles Atlas ad, with Charlemange in the role of the bully, while Niels talks scientific babble about how to increase the mass of objects. After he demonstrates his device to increase mass, Charlemange gets the idea to turn the device on himself to win body-building contest. What follows is a very funny extrapolation on the "real world" consequences of such powers.

I love Kurtzman's work on the short stories in the EC sci-fi/fantasy books, as much as I love his more famous work in MAD and the war books. He's very funny and inventive visually throughout, like the interesting sequence where Charlemange punches out a mugger, and there's a three-panel silent sequence of the mugger reeling from the punch.

It's also always fascinating when looking at Kurtzman art of the period how obviously influential he was on modern "alternative" comics. This particular story is full of bits that look exactly like early Dan Clowes work, as well as other modern cartoonists.

LITTLE LULU GOES SHOPPING by Stanley/Tripp

Over the last few years Dark Horse has expanded its output with reprints of various classic comics. A lot of them are welcome additions to the library of any comic fan, none moreso than their new series of LITTLE LULU comics by John Stanley and Irving Tripp published by Dell in the 1940s and 1950s.

The first volume released, LITTLE LULU GOES SHOPPING, collects MARGE'S LITTLE LULU #6 - #12 from 1948 and 1949 (check here for a partial explanation of when the earlier issues will be published, but be prepared for head-spinning).

It's always good to see long-running work from a pair of top-notch creators at the top of their game brought back into print. The premise of the series is just kids living in suburbia, and how they interact with the world and each other. The main characters are Lulu (a smart young girl), her best friend Tubby (good natured but sometimes a bit conniving), and a younger boy, Alvin (generally a bit bratty and hard to handle). There are various other kids who are mostly background in this volume, but fleshed out later. From this basic set-up all sorts of story possibilities open, and provided Stanley and Tripp with material for years.

Each issue has a good variety of material. In general there's a wordless gag strip (from the inside cover of the original), a few Lulu focused stories, an "Alvin's Storytime" tale (where Lulu tells a free-form fantasy story to Alvin, usually trying in vain to teach him a lesson) and a Tubby story. A nice mix within each issue, as each type of story has a different feel. The storytelling is nicely dense, with the four-tier format common in kids comics of the era, so you get a lot of room even in six to ten pages. Lots of sight gags, word gags and often an interesting ironic or sardonic twist at the end.

Upcoming books should be equally strong. In particular I'm looking forward to the "Spider" stories, where Tubby takes a role as a detective, whose main suspect always ends up being Lulu's pop. Those I've read are wonderfully done.

While I've got all sorts of quibbles about some production aspects of the book, it's an amazing value at US$10 for seven original issues, over 200 pages of classic material, with crisp reproduction of the artwork. There's an occasional story where the colouring is missed (not surprisingly mostly in "The Green Girl"), but for the most part it looks great in black and white.

Since I'm a bit obsessive about these kinds of things, here's a table of contents I prepared to put inside my copy of the book.

Marge's Little Lulu #6
6 - [Tubby's Death Scene]
7 - Little Lulu Goes Shopping
17 - The Bad Boy
24 - Lost Dog
30 - The Ugly Duckling

Marge's Little Lulu #7
37 - [Tubby Sledding]
38 - Detective Story
48 - [Lulu! Time to get up!]
50 - The Snowball War
60 - [Alvin! Oh, Alvin!]
62 - Tubby Takes Care of Things

Marge's Little Lulu #8
68 - [Tree Swing]
69 - Happy Birthday
79 - [43-44-45-]
82 - Beautiful Lulu
88 - Pleasant Dreams
94 - Tough Guy

Marge's Little Lulu #9
99 - [Z Z Z Z Z Z]
100 - A Wrong Move
110 - The Cloud That Ran Away
116 - Pot of Gold
124 - Tubby Meets a Ghost

Marge's Little Lulu #10
130 - [Lulu Sleeping / Tubby Reading]
131 - Snowmen
142 - Bank Robbery
150 - Story In a Barrel
155 - The Musician

Marge's Little Lulu #11
161 - [Feeding the Cat]
162 - Housekeeper Wanted
172 - A Clothes Call
178 - The Prince In the Pool
186 - Tubby's Uncle

Marge's Little Lulu #12
192 - [Buttering Bread]
193 - Sea Dogs
203 - Fifty-Fifty Proposition
209 - The Green Girl
217 - Tubby's Revenge

TALES OF THE CLOSET (con'd)

Hadn't planned to, but since I had my run of TALES OF THE CLOSET out I started re-reading it, and found myself unable to not continue right on to the next issue after finishing each one. I am really surprised at how good a comic it was, sorry about how little attention it seemed to get when it was coming out and hopeful that this time around it will catch on. I really don't want to have to wait too long to read the conclusion to the multiple cliffhangers in #9.

So, y'know, just a word of warning that if you keep reading this here weblog you're going to see a lot of plugs and updates for the upcoming books. That website again is www.planetbronx.com.

I think I'll re-read Velez's BLOOD SYNDICATE run while I'm waiting. It wasn't TOTC, but it was still pretty damn good.

TALES OF THE CLOSET by Ivan Velez Jr.

As I mentioned before, Ivan Velez recently had the welcome news that he would be republishing his TALES OF THE CLOSET series. It'll be three volumes collecting the existing nine issues, then a fourth all-new volume, resolving the cliffhanger ending from #9 and setting up future stories.

For those not familiar with the series, it was published from 1987 to 1993 by New York's Hetrick-Martin Institute for the Protection of Gay and Lesbian Youth, and features eight main characters who meet in high school and come to terms with their sexuality.

Here's a page from #2 (click for a larger scan), showing an early meeting of the eight main characters, which I think does a nice job of showing how Velez differentiated them in dialogue and artwork.

While the comic could get a bit preachy and teachy at times, as it explored various educational issues of importance to the community it was aimed to, Velez did a good job of integrating those aspects to the character bits, and weaved an interesting melodramatic soap-opera type plot that weaves through the entire series. There are a lot of characters to follow in addition to the main eight, and each has an interesting story that keeps popping up at points with some clever twists.

Anyway, very good news that the series will be reprinted and completed, and I'll post more news as I get it.

Upcoming Comics - April 2005

Just a few notable comic related books that are scheduled for a few months from now.

MARVEL VISIONARIES STEVE DITKO HC is a big thick book of Ditko stories, including some of the best Spider-Man and Doc Strange stories ever. You can go here for a partial list of the contents, with some commentary on what someone thinks should be included (most of which I agree with). Whatever fills out those extra pages, this is definitely going to be a nice collection.

COMPLETE PEANUTS VOL 3 1955-1956 HC has two more years of Charles Schulz's classic strip. These are excellent looking books, and I think this volume will have some particular favourites from books I read as a kid.

OSAMU TEZUKA'S BUDDHA VOL 1 KAPILAVASTU - interesting to see that Vertical is releasing very inexpensive ($8) softcover editions of these books, with different volume breaks from the hardcover (around 256 pages each, as opposed 350-400+ for the hardcovers, so I guess 12 volumes for the series instead of 8). I'll be posting some things about the hardcover volumes in a while. Also on the literary manga front, note that Last Gasp finishes the new printings of Keiji Nakazawa's BAREFOOT GEN with books 3 and 4. Been wanting to re-read those as well.

24 HOUR COMICS ALL STARS is the third collection of "24 Hour Comics" from About Comics. Of note in this 240 page book are the contributions of Scott McCloud (the first 24 Hour Comic, which can be read here) and Paul Smith. Good bet there'll be enough interesting stuff to be worth the price.

ESSENTIAL HULK VOL 3 should have enough good stuff to be worth buying, especially for the Trimpe/Severin issues, although I'd be a bit peeved seeing it coming if I didn't know that new THOR and FF volumes should be out later in the year.

DAVE SIM COLLECTED LETTERS 2004 TP proves, if nothing else, that Sim's insanity didn't end with #300. It's hard to believe there's enough of a market for this, even among people who sent Sim letters.

MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER VOL 3 4000 AD HC has more of the Russ Manning classic. I'll probably pick them up eventually, if no paperback volumes are released, although the reproduction, from printed comics, seemed to leave a bit to be desired for a $50 hardcover.

FIRST KINGDOM VOL 1 TP (OF 4) collects Jack Katz's long fantasy epic, published by Mecca Comics. Should be interesting to take a look at.

Also of note, mostly stuff I'll pick up in eventual collections, P. Craig Russell is doing a CONAN mini-series, which should look nice. New issue of JACK STAFF from Paul Grist. GIRL GENIUS #14 by the Foglios. A SUPERNATURAL LAW special by Batton Lash. Continuing GRIMJACK mini-series by Ostrander/Truman (plus a second collection of the original run) from IDW.

WHAT IF DR DOOM... by Kesel/Smith

I don't buy a lot of new comics in the "traditional" comic format these days, and almost none in that format that aren't creator-owned. I figure for the corporate stuff I can pick up a collection down the road if it seems interesting. One of the things I make an exception for is Karl Kesel writing the Fantastic Four with a good artist in tow (other recent exceptions have included Eddie Campbell writing Batman and Batton Lash doing a New Gods parody in RADIOACTIVE MAN with Royer inks). Which brings us to the recent one-shot WHAT IF DOCTOR DOOM HAD BECOME THE THING?, written by Kesel and drawn by Paul Smith.

This is a very nice little comic, featuring a fairly plausible deviation point for the characters, unlike a lot of "What If" stories (including, admittedly, my favourite, the Marvel Bullpen becoming the FF). In this one, Doom recognizes that Reed Richards caught his error in the classic college scene, and decides, as Doom would, that he can use and manipulate Richards, ending up taking Ben Grimm's place on the trip that led to the FF getting their powers. There are also a few nice twists along the way, using some good semi-logical extrapolations from the initial deviation combined with standard Marvel history.

I'm as impressed with Paul Smith's artwork. I've enjoyed his work for quite a while, and he's one of those few who can take a project like this, draw it in what's clearly his own style, but with just enough touches of the original Kirby style from these stories to evoke them without imitating. Plus his storytelling is nice and clear and open.

I was glad to hear that Kesel will be writing a few upcoming issues of FANTASTIC FOUR with Tom Grummett drawing, which should be fun. I don't know what, if anything, Smith has coming up. Hopefully some more of his LEAVE IT TO CHANCE series in the near future.