Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Marvex!

We are know how violent comics can be. Just check out any issue of Punisher (currently drawn by local hero Tan Eng Huat), he'll be blasting the villains to kingdom come. Suicide is not in short supply too. Those old enough will remember X-Men #137 - Phoenix Must Die! Yeah, she killed herself.

But superheroes always had this hang-up about taking lives. One of my favourite Superman story (and also fave Alan Moore story) is Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (recently reprinted in hc and way more superior than Gaiman's Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?) In that story, Supes felt so bad about taking the life of Mxyzptlk (a demon from the fifth dimension) that he exposed himself to Gold Kryptonite and walked out of the Fortress of Solitude without his powers, supposedly another act of suicide.

Most people have forgotten that when Siegel and Shuster created the Man of Steel, he used to throw people around. And the original Batman by Bob Kane, he carries a gun and uses it with extreme prejudice.

http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2005/08/batman-and-guns.html

That's why it's so fun to read the 30s superhero reprints by Fantagraphics:

I Shall Destroyed All Civilized Planets and You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation by Fletcher Hanks

Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936 - 1941

Solid stuff when read together with The Ten Cent Plague and you'll see why the authorities were scared shitless by the comic books. These were wild things.

So forget about the DC Archives, these are the real deal. I suspect these stuff were avoided when DC reprinted 30s/40s materials in those 100-page Adventure digests in the 1980s. Not even a hint when Roy Thomas revived JSA, All-Stars, etc over the years.

Okay, if you want a sample of these hard stuff, go get All Select Comic #1, one of those 70 Years reprints (plus new materials) that Marvel is putting out. The new Blonde Phantom story is pretty lame. (Javier Pulido's art redeems it somewhat) Go straight to the 2 Marvex stories from 1940. They are a riot! (only after that, check out the new Marvex story by michael kupperman)

Marvex kills his evil creators in the fifth dimension. (where else?)

Marvex yanks a bad guy by his hair and says "You are no good! You die!" Death by slamming the baddie against rocks.

"With a mighty heave, Marvex flings the spy right through the wall of the building!"

But the best part:

Girl: "Oh, thank you! You are the only friend I have!"
Marvex: "But remember - we can never be more than friends."
Girl: "Why not?"
Marvex: "Because I am not human. I am Marvex the Super-Robot."

and in another scene,

Girl: "Marvex - you're the most wonderful man I know!"
Marvex: "I AM NOT A MAN - ONLY A MACHINE!"


I think Hal Sharp (listed as the artist of the stories) was worried that readers might get the wrong idea that heavy metal sex was permissible.

Yeah, right.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Queer Beats

Was reading The Beats: A Graphic History by Harvey Pekar, Ed Piskor, etc.

Picked up Queer Beats: How the Beats Turned America On to Sex ed. Regina Marier later on.

Here's an interesting bit by John Giorno:

Little did I know that Allen Ginsberg breaking up Jack Kerouac and me was a sign of things to come. The first of many times that Allen would be an obstacle to me. An endlessly recurring pattern,that went on for 40 years, until Allen died,and afterwards. Allen was a good friend on the surface, and a secretly obstructing force; paraniod,but true. Among the many reasons and complicated karma were that Allen was jealous of anyone close to William Burroughs and I lived with William for 3decades in the Bunker at 222 Bowery in NY and in Lawrence,Kansas, and toured performing with him endlessly.

I ran into Jack Kerouac occasionally during his brief visits to NY over the next 10 years,until he died in 1969.He became a nice,overweight, drunk guy. Nothing ever happened again,because it was too much troubleto make it happen.I had gone to Andy Warhol and the 1960s, and the golden age of promiscuity.

Remember the Alamo!

great splash page.

http://scifiwire.com/assets_c/2009/06/BestSimonKirbyReview2-thumb-550x396-18914.jpg

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

Reading this book now by David Hajdu. The paperback just came out, can be found at Kino.

It was old crusty Bob Beerbohm who told me at San Diego last year that I should read this book. In fact, he brought me over to Bud Plant to look for a copy but it sold out.

Hajdu's thesis: comics as teenage rebellion predates rock n roll.

Some interesting facts:

"Invulnerable in the panels in the comic books, superheroes succumbed to common criminals on the newsstands. In the late 1940s, dozens of costumed characters, including Captain America, the Flash, the Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Human Torch, and the Submariner, were all discontinued by publishers quick to move on the new trend, crime. In 1946, crime had represented about 3% of all comics, in 1947, 9%; in 1948, 14%. 30 new crime titles appeared in 1948 alone." (p. 110)

"In 1948, the 80 million to 100 million comic books purchased by America every month generated annual revenue for the industry of at least $72 million. (The usual cover price was 10 cents, although some digest-format books sold for 5 cents apiece.)" (p. 112)

Not forgetting that around this time, some states were already legislating against the sale of crime comics to teenagers. The 'king' of crime comics then was Crime Does Not Pay (Lev Gleason, Charles Biro, Bob Wood).

Not long after that, "the frenzy over crime comics began to subside". Love comics became the next wave. (chapter 8)

A few years back, I bought alot of Jack Kirby and Wally Wood stuff from ebay. A review of Kirby's comics output in the 1940s and 1950s (pre-Silver Age) would reflect the trends described above.

This is one of my best buy:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n24/n120567.jpg

Put out by Eclipse Comics in 1988 when the King was still alive.


[over the years, some of the romance comics have been reprinted by both DC and Marvel.

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/yr001.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Romance-TPB-Stan-Lee/dp/0785120890/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a

There's even a book about this genre.

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Racks-History-American-Romance/dp/0786435194/ref=pd_sim_b_4]


Picked this up as well:

http://www.thefifthbranch.com/images/oldies/kirbymags/mob1cover.jpg

which is not really from the 1940s but something Kirby did in 1971. Fascinating crime stuff that reflects the vibracy of the genre.

And the reason why this book is called the 10 cents plague - it's because comic books were priced at 10 cents from the 1930s all the way to the early 60s.

Found this out for myself when I picked up 70 Years of Marvel Comics Poster Book. The price of comic books remained the same at 10 cents from the late 1930s (Marvel Comics #1) to early 1960s (FF#1). Of course, the number of pages went down while the price remains the same.

The price slowly increased after that:

Amazing Fantasy #15 - 12 cents
Avengers #92 - 15 cents
Luke Cage #1 - 20 cents
Hulk #181 (1st app of Wolverine!) - 25 cents
Ms Marvel #1 - 30 cents
Howard the Duck #30 - 35 cents
X-Men #141 - 50 cents
(somewhere along the line, I know it went up to 60 cents and I remember Marvel was holding on to that price while DC raised theirs to 75 cents)
Secret Wars #7 - 75 cents

and then it went on to $1, $1.25 and so on.

On the same trip to the comic shop, I also picked up Astonishing X-Men #30 and that is cover priced $2.99.

Now it's the $3 plague.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Concave Scream

Soundtrack for a book. Another one on heavy rotation.

They're opening for The Ob next Sat at Blu Jazz, 9.30 pm.

Their own album launch - 18 Sept, Esplanade, 9.30 pm.

Dark Folke

The Observatory 4th album.
Been listening to this. Go get it.

Official website www.theobservatory.com.sg
Facebook www.facebook.com/theobservatory
Myspace myspace.com/theobservatoryband

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Kid A

This poem by Simon Armitage is about Robin.

Kid (1992)

Batman, big shot, when you gave the order
to grow up, then let me loose to wander
leeward, freely through the wild blue yonder
as you liked to say, or ditched me, rather,
in the gutter ... well, I turned the corner.
Now I've scotched that 'he was like a father
to me' rumour, sacked it, blown the cover
on that 'he was like an elder brother'
story, let the cat out on that caper
with the married woman, how you took her
downtown on expenses in the motor.
Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg-shocker!
Holy roll-me-over-in the-clover,
I'm not playing ball boy any longer
Batman, now I've doffed that off-the-shoulder
Sherwood-Forest-green and scarlet number
for a pair of jeans and crew-neck jumper;
now I'm taller, harder, stronger, older.
Batman, it makes a marvellous picture:
you without a shadow, stewing over
chicken giblets in the pressure cooker,
next to nothing in the walk-in larder,
punching the palm of your hand all winter,
you baby, now I'm the real boy wonder.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Bestselling Comics at Kino for June 09

1. FINAL CRISIS
by GRANT MORRISON, J.G. JONES, CARLOS PACHECO, DOUG MAHNKE

2. WORLD OF WARCRAFT ASHBRINGER
by MICKY NEILSON, LUDO LULLABI, TONY WASHINGTON

3. VAMPIRE KNIGHT VOLUME 9
by MATSURI HINO

4. WATCHMEN
by ALAN MOORE, DAVE GIBBONS

5. OISHINBO: RAMEN AND GYOZA
by TETSU KARIYA, AKIRA HANASAKI

6. TSUBASA VOLUME 22
by CLAMP

7. BATMAN: R.I.P.
by GRANT MORRISON, TONY DANIEL

8. TRANSFORMERS REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
by SIMON FURMAN

9. MY FAIR LADY VOLUME 22
by TOMOKO HAYAKAWA

10. WARCRAFT: LEGENDS VOLUME 4
by RICHARD A. KNAAK, JAE-HWAN KIM, FERNANDO HEINZ FURUKAWA, DAN JOLLEY