Sunday Pin-Up

Johnny Boo by James Kochalka

Based upon what the Fortress Family read on Free Comic Book Day, Johnny Boo just may be the most awesome - or at least fun - book we’ll see this year.

Take that, Final Crisis and Secret Invasion!

Mystery In Space

When Ziff-Davis decided to launch a comic-book division in the 1950s, the publisher attracted some of the best talent of the era.

Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel was hired as editorial director, who commissioned work from such high-profile artists as Wally Wood, Alex Schomburg and Ogden Whitney.

Murphy Anderson, best known for his wonderful pencil and ink work for DC, also contributed to the line. In fact, his work appeared in the publisher’s very first comic - Amazing Adventures #1.

Besides Anderson’s typically beautiful work, the tale - entitled The Asteroid Witch - is notable for featuring one of the least likable male protagonists ever seen in a Golden Age comic. The heroine, on the other hand, is brave and resourceful enough to almost make up for her horrible taste in men.

Although no writer is named, Anderson believed the script was penned by Siegel himself.

Unfortunately, Ziff-Davis’ reliance on top-tier talent and high production values didn’t translate to widespread commercial success. The stories were just a bit too tame for readers thrilling to EC horror and Lev Gleason crime comics.

Many of Ziff-Davis’ titles ended up under the St. John comics umbrella, the maverick publisher that produced one of the first graphic novels - Arnold Drake, Leslie Waller and Matt Baker’s wonderful B-moviesque It Rhymes With Lust.

With our history lesson out of the way, let’s all sit back and enjoy The Asteroid Witch. Thanks, as always, to the Golden Age Comics Downloads site.

Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fashion

Dave Sim’s glamourpuss reminds us of Neil Young’s rockabilly phase: it’s easy to see some connection to the artist’s earlier, more heralded work but the chosen genre of expression is so wildly off-kilter that you can’t help but wonder if this is an act of impenetrable genius, pure insanity or just some obscure practical joke.

Maybe it’s a combination of all three … or none of the above.

Sim himself - or at least, his press release - has described the book as partly a “take on photorealism in comics (starting with Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby in 1946), partly a fashion magazine parody and partly a ’sincerely weird super-heroine comic.’”

Like Neil Young’s ’80s oeuvre, your opinion of glamorpuss could well reflect your opinion of the artist himself. Many in the media castigated Young for supporting Reagan’s presidency and scoured his defiantly weird recordings for clues of conservatism.

Likewise, Sim is just about as well-known in comics circles for his “anti-feminism” than for the artistic achievement of Cerebus. In fact, the blogosphere has paid more heed to Sim’s “I am not a misogynist” form letter than to glamourpuss itself.

Well … let’s take this opportunity to state The Keeper doesn’t subscribe to Sim’s views. However, we also don’t consider ourselves an objectivist or particularly believe the Earth is expanding. These opinions haven’t prevented us from appreciating Steve Ditko and Neal Adams’ works, so we feel more than comfortable extending the same standard to Sim.

So, is the comic any good?

That’s … tough to say. As a commentary on photorealism, it’s pretty compelling stuff. Sim is clearly working outside his comfort zone as he copies Alex Raymond good girls (A shot at modern day super-stars like Greg Land? Has he even heard of Land?) and his views on the Flash Gordon/Rip Kirby creator’s work are well-considered.

As a parody of an empty-headed fashion magazine, glamourpuss is cleverly packaged and skewers its targets quite accurately. Some of the humor seems a bit obvious, but then again we do live in a world where Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model are considered must-see TV.

As a weird super-heroine comic, um, well the Keeper was a bit nonplussed about that aspect of the book. Was Sim slipping in his controversial philosophies, or is the “story-line” - if such a thing even exists in glamourpuss - exactly what it appeared to be?

(Whatever that was … )

These are the sort of questions that have spun through our head since reading glamourpuss a week ago. Clearly, there’s a lot more on this book’s plate than you see in an average super-hero title. Is it any good?

Well, that judgment will have to wait until a few more issues come out. Even then, the answer won’t be clear-cut.

Kind of like that Neil Young rockabilly album.

Phantom Menace

The most recent edition of Back Issue features a great interview with Hulk artist Herb Trimpe, who offers a revealing anecdote on how the business of creating funny books isn’t really all that fun …

Funny you should mention the Phantom Eagle - as I understand it, he has recently been revived in a one-shot deal at Marvel! Can You believe that? I make no comment whatsoever about that, only to say that Gary Friedrich created the concept and I designed the character, but there was no mention of that on the site that interviewed a member of the new “creative team.” They even presented a full-color drawing that I had originally done of the character with no credit given.

Of course, nobody in the world gives a sh*t. Not even me, actually, as it is not what you would call a high-profile event. But it does give a good idea of the harshness of corporate reality and how easily nice people can get sucked into it.

Now, a reasonable person could ask what Marvel has to lose by simply giving credit where credit is due to past creators. Not much regarding Phantom Eagle, perhaps, but quite a bit could be at stake if - say - Steve Ditko or another high-profile writer and/or artist started making noise.

Thus the whole conceit of corporate authorship: the big whigs - to loosely quote Mel Brooks - have to keep their phony-baloney jobs.

Comics fans - primarily those who want to enjoy the adventures of their favorite characters without feeling guilty - maintain the issue of creators’ rights isn’t a clear-cut issue. Artists and writers, such readers claim, knew exactly what they were getting into when they signed up with Marvel or DC.

That sentiment is arguable, but the Keeper can’t help but feel angry after reading quotes like Trimpe’s or - for that matter - hearing that an esteemed artist like Ernie Colon had to work as security guard to earn some dough in his ’70s.

Don’t the people who brought so much enjoyment to readers - and money to corporate entities - deserve better?

The Dynamic Duo

Oops.

It appears your friendly neighborhood Keeper has accidentally locked himself in the Fortress’ Golden Age exhibit.

So, instead of opining (again) on the return of Barry Allen and DC’s inability to pair Grant Morrison up with a decent artist on Batman (sole exception: J.H. Williams III on the “Club of Heroes” story), we will take another dip into the public domain for a rip-roaring tale of he-man action.

Today, the spotlight is on Blue Bolt - a Flash Gordon-esque character who discovers a lost kingdom beneath the earth and finds himself matching wits with the deadly Green Sorceress, one of the most striking villains of the Golden Age.

Blue Bolt was created by Joe Simon, who enlisted a valuable partner to help write and draw the character for the next dozen or so issues - Jack Kirby

The following story, which originally appeared in Blue Bolt Comics #2, is the first Simon & Kirby tale to appear in comics. Unlike the assembly-line approach seen in American comics through most of the medium’s history, this story is a true collaboration between two creators working closely together.

Although a bit primitive compared to what the two would achieve later in their careers, Simon & Kirby’s Blue Bolt clearly displays the spark of genius that would go on to create Captain America, Young Romance and a host of other landmark characters and titles.