Rolling Comic Books 2023

Finished Monica by Daniel Clowes tonight. Enjoyed it a lot, especially the linked short story format. I need to reread it to get a better sense of how the stories fit together; most are very obvious but there are a few that stuck out as oddballs. The only thing I had read by him before was Ghost World, which was more relatable, but this was bigger and conveyed so much dread.

Capes are always going to be a problem.

Watchmen definitely did a number on capes. Good point on Cyclops’ glasses. I’ve always assumed costumes start smelling funky pretty fast… I remember at least one Spidey that dealt with this.

Found a really lovely piece by Gene Colan (inked by Alcala) in Marvel Preview 23, it starts with a photo sequence and really doesn't look like it's leading into any series. It stills burns me that there's so many good anthology comics and the rights are still tied up for so many of them, unlikely to be reprinted for a long time. I love short pieces but my gripe with anthology comics is that unless you're cutting out the pages, you'll accumulate hundreds of pages of comics you don't care about. I have cut out some pages from anthologies years ago but I can't bring myself to keep doing it. So rather than buying back issues I tend to save pages I want from the pirate sites.

Skywald's comics seem to have fallen into public domain and I see a bunch of print-on-demand reprints of them, some people are doing the same with Charlton. Dark Horse are reprinting Creepy and Eerie in softcover now, I hope it isn't too late for more artist specific collections (which are compromised by Harris owning all the Warren era of Vampirella).

I think this kind of thing might be what sent me down the road of mostly hating work for hire arrangements.

I recently learned about Vampirella… is it worth getting into any of that? The character seems interesting, but her Wikipedia article is absolutely baffling in its complexity.

The thing about the Warren era of Vampirella is that the bulk of it was just an anthology comic like Creepy or Eerie. The main stories that kicked off each issue started off looking like sort of a comedic (unfunny) sexy adventure thing but most of the issues I actually read she was just like a detective with two very old people as sidekicks, just played totally straight.

I downloaded a scanned copy of one of those issues recently, but only read the brief dystopian sci-fi story in the middle (which was unrelated to Vampirella).

Hardly only about comic books, and I guess most of us have heard these arguments before, but this is the best summation of them I've read:

https://buttondown.email/riteshwriter/archive/8the-grift-cycle/

Yeah.

Maybe the writers here will get a decent deal but this looks like IP farming to me and I'm worried this will only get more prevalent
https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/10/the-book-world-still-isnt-diverse-dhonielle-clayton-is-trying-to-change-that/

Says at the end that the adult side of the industry has been reluctant and I hope it stays that way, they should be giving publishing deals to people who will own their copyright.

Been looking at Mort Meskin again, his fine art too and it's amazing how varied his style could be. Wish there was bigger collections of his work, need to get the biography soon. His official site is really good.
http://www.mortmeskin.net/

With you on this, inherently dislike that idea of IP farming/work-for-hire as a gateway for minority artists to get exposure, but I suppose that has always been the case in Marvel and DC comic books, and it has worked out well for some.

The Vampirella covers were always sexier than the interiors.

The series did attract a lot of talent.

RE: Mort Meskin - I have Out of the Shadows, a pretty dece anthology of Meskin strips that Fantagraphics put out in 2012, shot from the comics and looking OK on the whole. Just flicking through now, you can really see the influence on Ditko, especially in a Kid Crusaders strip from 1946. Anyway, this appears to be p cheap still on Euro Amazon and I'm sure elsewhere.

RE: Vampirella - at one point Hammer had the rights to make a Vampirella film, but nothing came of it:
https://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/news/2019/september/calling-all-horror-fans-legendary-hammer-film-vampirella-to-be-performed.aspx

I do have Out Of The Shadows, it seems like a good selection but not sure how much of his DC work it covers if any, is the copyright still tied up? I see that some p-o-d publishers are doing series like Mortified and others, I've seen publishers like this take a chance and bootleg old DC and Marvel stuff.

I think the most obvious influence of Meskin on Ditko is the clusters of floating heads (often utilized in scenes about public opinion or opinions of a certain social circle haunting someone).

I can't recall which comic, but I'm certain Ditko used this photo (Susan Strasberg in Scream Of Fear) as reference, maybe even more than once.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/630644754084908847/

There's an interesting part in Ditko Unleashed where it compares Ditko's idealized Randian statues (in Blue Beetle) to art of idealized soviet workers and made a brief argument that Ditko was conscious of this. I wonder how much control Rand had over her cover art and how much has been the interpretation of editors/publishers, and the tastes of her fans.

I take back what I said about Frank Miller’s Daredevil. I had read the big omnibus
doesn’t have Born Again, so it was underwhelming. Just read Born Again and it’s really great, I get it now. The coloring in those issues is amazing.

I’m keeping up with the Dark Horse Creepy/Eerie paperbacks which are pretty fun. Not as good as EC comics, but the variety in artwork makes it enjoyable.

Creepy/Eerie headz might want to check out the completely complete (including unpublished) Web Of Horror for rolling comics 2024 — Wrightson, Kaluta, Reese &al.

hadn't heard about the unpublished pages!

Rolling Comic Books 2024

Happy New Year! I rhave big love for Mort Meskin as well, esp. his wild early Vigilante splashes. His stuff was often so kinetic but the quality varied wildly as he seemed to have personal issues later on that affected his drawing.

Somebody did a book as a duel tribute to him and Umezu (unusual combo) recently but I havent seen it. He's one of many artists I think might be more celebrated if the rights weren't tied up in so many companies. I think a lot of his work was collaboration too. I ordered the biography, I really like reading about that era of comic artists.