Author: larsmagne23

Last Kiss (1988) #1 by John Watkiss et al.

I wondered whether I should just skip the Acme Press books when doing this blog series. These comics are “published” by Acme Press but “distributed” by Eclipse Comics. I take that to mean that the people at Acme Press put the book together, and then Eclipse sent the book to the printer and then shipped the book to the distributors.

But what the hey; the covers have the Eclipse logo, so let’s just do them, too.

This is a collection of short pieces drawn by Watkiss and written by a variety of people. Nowhere in the book (it’s a squarebound 48 page standard size comic) does it say whether these stories are reprints or original works, but they’re in various aspect ratios, so I’m guessing reprints.

It’s an old Eclipse tradition not to mention these things, so at least that’s consistent.

The first two stories are adaptations of old horror stories, one by Edgar Allen Poe and the other by D. H. Lawrence. The Poe one (The Black Cat) has been adapted many, many times, but Watkiss does a pretty good job of getting at the dread of the asshole protagonist, but the Lawrence story is pretty messy. It’s just confusing, and Watkiss’ layouts have your eyes skidding around without finding any sense or purchase.

But, I mean, his artwork is very pretty. Those juicy, inky blacks set against white voids is very effective, as in this wordless er piece. It might be a story; if so, I couldn’t follow it.

The worst bits in the book are the handful of stories that round out the volume; all written by Cifn Ridout. They’re the kind of stuff you used to find in British anthologies in the 80s. MUCH SATIRE!

There’s an interview with Watkiss at the back of the book, and he manages to slag pretty much all the artists that people generally like. There’s a line below the interview, set in a different font, saying that the views are Watkiss’ and do not reflect those of the publisher (who’s publishing many of the people Watkiss criticises). I wonder whether Eclipse slipped that in before sending it to the printer?

Tsk tsk.

I’ve been unable to find any reviews of the book on der intertubes, and it’s never been reprinted.

Weird Romance (1988) #1 edited by Jim Vadeboncoeur, jr.

So what’s this then?

It’s another stealth issue in the Seduction of the Innocent series. I guess it makes some sense to give these separate titles per subject…

Jim Vadeboncoeur, jr. explains the concept of this book: The most popular genre in American comics history was romance comics, but the genre also influenced all other comics and changed how comics were made forever after.

So these are comics from pre-code horror comics, but they have borrowed tropes from romance comics.

Like this one about a vampire seductress by Lou Cameron.

The most romantic one is the sea-maiden thing possibly by Dan and Sy Barry.

As usual in the Seduction of the Innocent reprint series, the editor picks superior examples to reprint. But on the other hand, none of these stories are Earth-shattering in any way, but I guess they’re pleasant enough.

And I think this is the very last stealth issue of this reprint series.

Hand of Fate (1988) #1-3 by Bruce Jones, Gérald Forton et al.

I think this may be Bruce Jones’ final series for Eclipse Comics. He made a pretty brief return in 87/88 with a handful of titles, but none survived beyond three issues (but it’s unclear that any of them were meant to be continuing series).

This one certainly has a structure that would lend itself to go on indefinitely: It’s basically a prototype for all those “supernatural FBI” TV shows. Every week there’s a new monster, and you have a detective doing the procedure to uncover the truth.

But the most striking thing about the first issue is the layout, really. It looks like it has been drawn to be printed in a larger format, but the aspect ratio is not the album format aspect ratio. (And the lettering is very small.)

The gutter-less panels are also an unusual an striking element.

Bruce Jones tried to break into the TV business, so I wonder whether this originated as a pitch. It’s very high concept: It’s about a private detective who’s emulating the 40s fictional detectives, and his sidekick is a kick-ass psychic, and he has a raven as a pet. You can tell that to a TV exec during an elevator ride, right? Why didn’t anybody option it? I’d watch it.

And these three issues are a pleasant read on that level: Each issue is, like, one of the monster-of-the-week episodes of X-Files. No long-running intrigues, just a new mystery every issue, and it’s well-told and fun.

Forton’s artwork can be rather odd, though. He draws each body part well, but when it comes to combining them, he’s often slightly off, like with that head too much to the right.

And then suddenly her neck is three times as long.

There’s a lot of that going on.

But otherwise, it’s quite pleasant. He doesn’t cheat: Does nice backgrounds; it flows well; the characters are good-looking.

And then! Suddenly he switches from four tiers with no gutters to three tiers with gutters in the middle of the issue. And the lettering grows larger. So the first dozen pages were drawn with a bigger format in mind, but then they decided on standard-size floppy format instead, and the drew the rest of the pages like this?

While the bulk of each issue is a procedural, we get slightly supernatural monsters. But scientific monsters, even if one of the protagonists are psychic. It’s not unusual for the genre to mix and match, though.

I’m guessing the series didn’t sell well, because the third and final issue is in black and white. But it’s the one with the best artwork, so never mind. I love this initial sequence told from the cat’s eye level, and I can well imagine that Jones had specced this out as a TV episode.

But that’s it for the series. It’s never been reprinted or collected. It’s not that surprising, because this is episodic light entertainment, but on the other hand, I was entertained, so…

It doesn’t seem to have made much expression on teh intertubes, but there’s this:

This comic is a well-plotted and exciting private eye mystery, though I’m not sure the plot made complete sense. Gerald Forton’s art is kind of Ditkoesque. His opening splash panel, which is a top-down view of Fate’s office, is impressive.

Oh! Forton is French and had been doing comics since the 50s. That explains the nice interiors.

Xenon (1987) #1-23 by Masaomi Kanzaki et al.

This is the fourth and final bi-weekly Eclipse/Viz reprint series of Japanese comics. This was meant to run only 23 issues, so it wasn’t pulled by Viz like Kamui and Area 88 was when Viz became unhappy with the sales levels provided by Eclipse. In light of what later happened between Eclipse and their next partners in Japanese comics, Studio Proteus, it does raise some questions about what really happened…

But we’ll get to that when we get to 1992. Only mumble blog posts to go!

This was launched half a year after the initial three series, and is the most contemporary Japanese of them all, so I’m guessing that Eclipse (and Viz) realised that American audiences weren’t as resistant to foreign culture as they had surmised.

As long as that foreign culture was Japanese, of course.

I really like the way this series starts: So completely over the top. That’s the first page…

And those are the two subsequent pages. Isn’t that a great, unhinged way to start off a story?

And this is how two of the main characters are introduced; in mid-sentence, in mid stride, and Masaomi Kanzaki manages to delineate their characters that fast. In these two panels, we get that Risa is a boyish, impish girl and that Sonoko is fun, but romantic.

(Yeah, about that “Risa”… For all these four series, Eclipse would insist on translating names with ambiguous L/R (since the Japanese don’t really separate that much) as “R”. I can appreciate the logic, but it just reads a bit racist.)

*gasp* A delinquent gang of cheerleaders! It cannot be!

These are the major initial villains, but fortunately they’re expedited toot sweet.

Yeah, it’s a loud series. THERE”S A LOT OF SHOUTING! SO MUCH SHOUTING! SO DRAMA!

For a handful of issues we get an introduction to Japanese culture, like the apparently shocking fact that school uniforms exist. Perhaps this is more of an introduction into what culture the editors think Americans lack…

ANYWAY.

There’s lots and lots and lots of action. While the non-action pages are models of clarity and storytelling basics, the action scenes frequently go into “er?” territory. I’m guessing that the guys in the sunglasses rushed Ryuji and then he did some karate or something, but I have no idea why that karate or something would make the blood spatter the air.

There’s a lot of action scenes like this.

Masaomi Kanzaki has some different modes of drawing. When he’s drawing the kids (i.e., the heroes) the artwork looks quite attractive, but the style he uses for the older people is such a turn-off. Especially the guy with (presumably) white hair up there, with a tiny head on too-wide shoulders.

Virtually all Japanese comics made for children (like this is) is made by studios headed by the person who gets their name on the cover of the collections. I’m wondering whether these awkward scenes were drawn by somebody else while Masaomi Kanzaki concentrated on doing the fun stuff.

Like fridging Our Hero’s mother to his face. Yes, a few pages later he then vows to go after the evil organisation that killed his mother, so it’s the most basic fridging possible. The entire thing is lazy like that.

On the other hand, there’s so much chaos to appreciate. It’s barely comprehensive, but it’s just so out there. How can you not like?

Although that particular page may have been messier than intended… are those smudged greys supposed to be like that or a printing error?

Some storytelling choices are just great. The first panel is incomprehensible: Somebody’s shoulder? But then the next panel reveals what’s going on here, and it just suddenly works. It’s not cinematic, thank Odin; it’s very comics. But weird and fun.

Abra L. Numata writes the best text piece in the series, and it’s about the “new wave” in Japanese kid’s comics (of which this was one, and Akira was another).

Numata goes into interesting technical details about the innovations of this new wave. I mean, I find it interesting. Instead of talking about “themes” and “plot” and tedious things like that, Numata talks about speech balloons, their placements and the use/non-use of tails.

And it’s true: The speech balloon placement is great, and it’s non-traditional. I hadn’t particularly noticed, because Masaomi Kanzaki does the placement very carefully and logically, so as a reader, I was never in doubt who was saying what. Which is often a problem with Japanese comics.

(Above we have the sad background for the first major villain.)

Some parts of the series haven’t aged well.

I thought they were going to fridge the semi-love-interest of Our Hero, too, but they just ripped off her clothes and waved her around a bit instead. (To motivate Our Hero.)

They weirdest text piece in the book is where they basically recap everything that had happened to Our Hero, and speculates on the bits that Masaomi Kanzaki had left out (presumably on purpose).

The next major villains dispense with the sob story background for their villainy.

At random intervals during a fight scene, they’ll drop in a page that explains his super-hero powers. I mean, how his cybernetics work. It’s weird.

Xenon manages to hit all the required beats for a series like this, including some random scenes of pathos in the aftermath of an awesome fight. I think that’s called “depth”. I mean, by others.

They must be driving in the Bloody Seamobile! Since he could recognise the truck by just glancing in the mirror.

A WOMAN! IT CANNOT BE!

As the series progressed, it got a bit repetitive. We get basically four groups of villains, and this is the best one. (He’s chewing a kitten. Because he’s evil.) But there’s not much in the way of anything interesting going on otherwise, so I totally understand that Masaomi Kanzaki abandoned it after four collections.

Oh, the artwork was specially made for this series by Kanzaki? It’s the only one of the four Eclipse/Viz series to get that treatment: All the other ones just reused old artwork.

The letters are overwhelmingly positive, but there’s one that thinks there’s too much shouting.

There’s some levity and romance, but they mostly steer well clear of those icky bits.

So that we can concentrate on the final boss fight. But isn’t that boss rather Katsuhiro Otomo-like? The earlier villains weren’t, so perhaps Akira was taking off at the time or something… It’s too hot here to do research…

The final issue says “The End”, but it’s not much of an ending. I’m guessing the creator just got tired of it, or perhaps the editor did.

In the final letters page of all these Japanese reprint series, the editor, Letitia Glozer lists all the people who have written in, but not had their letters published. There was only room for a letters page in about every fourth issue, so a lot were left out, apparently.

Viz has reprinted Xenon as a four volume trade paperback series in 2002, and I’m not surprised. I don’t think it’s a particularly good series, but it’s not bad as these things go. And it’s a quick read.

Finding a review proved difficult, but I found this Italian one, which I quote via Google Translate:

“I’m glad I fell in love with a man named Asuka Kano!”

With these words the young Sonoko heartened our protagonist in the last chapter of the series. And in this sentence we find one of the most beloved torments of Japanese iconography: the cyborg and the struggle of this being, halfway between man and machine, for the affirmation of its human side. Kikaider, Kiashan, Hiroshi of Jeeg Robot … the list goes on for pages.

Perhaps this is why the Xenon manga , which appeared on the mythical “Zero” magazine in the nineties, permanently settled in the hearts of many Italian readers.

Walt Kelly’s Christmas Classics (1987) #1, Walt Kelly’s Springtime Tales (1988) #1 by Walt Kelly.

I loves me some Walt Kelly, but reprinting him in 32 page instalments doesn’t seem like the most efficient way to do it. He was a pretty prolific comic book creator (I think) before he started his Pogo newspaper strip, and most of these comics weren’t really put that much work into: His artwork can have a dashed-off feeling, and they’re usually really quick reads. So a 32 page floppy isn’t a very satisfactory chunk of Kelly.

Huh. The indicia says that this is Seduction of the Innocent #8… so I guess Eclipse slapped that Legacy numbering on all their pre-code comics reprints? I thought they reserved that label for the crime/weirdness stuff…

The first story is (by far) the best thing in these two comics. It’s reprinted from a Dell Four Colour Christmas special, and it’s well-drawn, imaginative and really, really sweet and season appropriate.

Maggie Thompson provides some context to the stories, which we really need for the second story in this issue: Peter Wheat.

These were comics given away for free with loaves of bread (!) and is apparently a long saga of Peter Wheat’s people’s war against some hornet people. It’s a bit confusing what the motivation for… well, anything… that happens in the story is, and the Kelly didn’t put a lot into the artwork, either. I mean, for him. It’s still lovely to look at, but I think even an eight-year-old (which is probably what this is aimed at) would be scratching their head if presented by just this story.

“Peter Wheat Push Is Harder”? “The Body Builder”? Oh, “Push Is” is a… pun?… on “pushes”?

*scratches head*

The second issue is ostensibly a collection of springtime tales, but we get another dose of Peter Wheat which is taken from a completely different part of the epic, apparently. Hermes Press printed two 270 pages volumes of this stuff last year, so I’m going to guess that that’s going to be more satisfying to read than the random samples on display here.

When Kelly draws for non-bread purposes, his drawings get at least twice as detailed and four times as charming.

We round off with some pretty sweet standalone goblin/fairy stuff that has some spring and bounce to it.

I would have guessed that everything in these issues had been given a proper reprinting by now, and comics.org seems to say that that’s the case. IDW has reprinted both the Christmas stuff and the goblin story above over the last few years.

Air Fighters Classics (1987) #1-6 by Hillman Periodicals.

Eclipse’s biggest seller was Airboy (I think), an action/adventure comic based on 40s characters published by Hillman. As backup features, they printed some of the original stories (recoloured), but not a whole lot of them.

So this series is a logical thing to do: Get some more substantial chunks of the originals out in a cheapish format. Each issue is 64 pages long and these are squarebound books. The introduction calls these “facsimile editions”, by which I take to mean that they’re reproduced from printed copies of the books, and not from the original artwork. But the original editions were in colour, right? The Eclipse reprints are in black and white, so they’re not very… fascsimileish…

These are from World War II, and are very patriotic. I was surprised to see Amelia Earhart pop up, though.

And the first villain we encounter is an evil American capitalist.

After he’s sabotaged the creator of Airboy’s floppy wing bird plane, he dastardly takes over a monastery and turns it into a casino! How evil! So Airboy does the natural thing and bombs it, presumably killing everybody inside.

The holy monks says it was truly an act of heaven.

And it goes on in that fashion: These stories are unhinged. Off the curb. Totes hittin’, man.

The artwork on most of these strips is fine, but pedestrian, but some really get into the spirit of things. Isn’t that the best Hitler ever?

Or is that the best Hitler ever?

There are so many great drawings of deranged Germans by this artist in this series, but the artist is unnamed.

The Germans want to torture our heroes at every opportunity, of course. Doesn’t that make you nostalgic? I mean, torture as a tool of the bad guys, not the good guys?

Every issue has two pages of text, which probably has something to do with arcane regulations at the time to get postal rates as a magazine instead of a comic book. I think.

Some of these comics are obviously drawn by somebody at the Will Eisner studio. That’s a very, very Eisner face.

It’s not all action/adventure. There’s a few very short more overtly funny pieces, too.

And a message from the secretary of the Treasury to all the boys and girls of America.

Of all the weird heroes that are introduced in these comics, Heap is… one of them. Yes, he sucks the life out of sheep.

And speaking of Eisnerish… Oh, this strip is signed; it’s by Bob Fujitani.

Man, that’s a good character.

As deranged as these comics are, reading all these stories in a single sitting was probably not a good idea. There’s a certain sameness that creeps in, and the stories are (beyond some of the central ideas) basically crap.

So what did the Interweb think?

CBR:

And that’s where I’m left. There are a lot of cool, crazy ideas in Air Fighters and reading this makes me even more excited for Moonstone’s modern, non-racist version. But on its own, even as a piece of history, it’s not something I want to experience more of.

Which is basically what I thought, but for other reasons.

Hillman publisher a lot more issues than this, and the final issue doesn’t mention that it’s been cancelled, but I would assume the circulation wasn’t high enough to continue. The Hillman comics haven’t been reprinted since, as far as I can tell.

New America (1987) #1-4 by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, Gary Kwapisz, Aubrey Bradford, et al.

This is the second of two mini-series designed to fill the gap between the first and second Scout series. Whereas Swords of Texas didn’t really advance the storyline forward much, New America is very much The Education of Rosa Winters.

She was a prominent character in the first Scout series, and I’m guessing she’ll be in the second one, too. This mini-series shows what she was up to in the years between the series in an episodic way: Each issue is pretty much a free-standing story of her getting involved in a heist, and learning something from that heist.

The heists vary a lot: The first is being involved with unionising the workers in Baja. (I know!)

Deep, man.

Anyway, the second is a straight-up assassination (of the King of Alaska (I know!)), so you see the span here.

These are pretty entertaining stories, and the artwork is… I guess… broadly professional-looking. Some things look a bit off (like the poncho gun fight above), but the anatomy’s usually non-wonky and the characters are expressive, and… you know… it’s fine. It’s hard to get excited by this artwork, though.

And! I learned that there’s an Armenia in South America, too. I was very confused the first couple of pages when they were talking about the drug cartels in Armenia.

Swords of Texas (1987) #1-4 by Charles Dixon, Ben Dunn, et al.

After being positively surprised by Timothy Truman’s Scout, I was hopeful about the two mini-series that were designed to fill the time between the first Scout series and the debut of the Scout: War Shaman series.

But these are more like I feared Scout would be: Badly drawn, leaden dialogue and a boring plot line.

Artist Ben Dunn was apparently most known for drawing robots at this time, and he definitely didn’t have human anatomy down, what with the constantly fluctuating head sizes…

… and headache-inducing layouts: If those people up there are shooting horizontally, why are the bullets raining down diagonally?

It’s just that sort of thing for four full issues.

Oh, the plot. It’s about these arms merchants that will sell arms to anybody, but they live a life of honour anyway. Yeah, yeah. It ends the way you’re imagining right now.

The backup feature by Beau Smith and Flint Henry (etc.) is a chaotic, unfunny mess.

Heh. They have a competition for “real man and real woman” where readers are supposed to submit pictures. Winners to be announced in the subsequent Scout: War Shaman series. Now I’m excited!

Apparently Eclipse was sitting on a lot of stock they wanted to get rid of. Overprintings that they then couldn’t sell? Apparently the Japanese comics and Scout, Airboy and Miracleman was successful enough to exclude, but they’re sitting on a lot of copies of Twisted Tales of Bruce Jones, which is no surprise.

And a handful of 3D comics? The fad’s over?

While the artwork remained basic, I think the writing got a bit better as the issues went by.

Oooh! And then Scout makes a surprise appearance for a couple of panels! At least I guess that’s supposed to be him.

We’ll see more of Chuck Dixon in this blog series, but I think Ben Dunn disappeared into the clutches of even smaller publishers after this…

Halloween Horror (1987) #1 edited by Jim Vadeboncoeur, jr.

From the cover of this book, I assumed that it was another Eclipse reprint of 70s horror stuff, but…

… this turns out to be the stealthy seventh issue of the Seduction of the Innocent series. So these are public domain pre-code horror stories from the 40s and 50s. Collections like these can be pretty hit and miss because there was so much awful stuff published back then, but Jim Vadeboncoeur, jr. had shown a pretty great taste level in the other issues of this series, so I was hopeful.

And these are indeed magnificently bonkers stories. This one, by persons unknown, features a good witch, baby-eating ogres…

… and gnomes that steal children’s eyeballs. You can’t wish for more than that, even if the artwork is rather basic.

And it’s meta, too.

Lou Cameron did the artwork on the second story, and it’s more standard fare all around. The story is so obvious that you can’t believe that they’re actually doing it, and the artwork is pretty standard.

But them again, it has panels like this, and you have to respect that.

Of note is also Jay Disbrow’s last work in comics, which ends on a full-page sideways splash.

But the gem of the book is Dick Briefer’s final Frankenstein work, and it’s totally unhinged, both in story and artwork. It’s a real delight to read.

Jim Vadeboncoeur, jr., as usual, writes a thorough and somewhat amusing history of the stories we’ve read.

The comic’s a pretty nice read all over.

Winter World (1987) #1-3 by Chuck Dixon and Jorge Zaffino.

This is another 4Winds production (i.e., it involves Timothy Truman (who edits this) and Chuck Dixon (who writes this). It’s odd that Eclipse didn’t reflect the 4Winds thing in its trade dress… You’d have thought there would be a large cross-over in interest between these books.

Anyway, the real interest in this book is the artwork by Jorge Zaffino. It has that dirty, perhaps slightly Kubert-influenced look, but filtered through an Argentinian aesthetic. And there’s something Italian about it too, but, then again, in the 60s there were a lot of comics artists that went back and forth (like Hugo Pratt).

When Zaffino’s characters get angry, their faces snarl up like crazy.

Anyway, this book is a post-apocalyptic action thing; a genre that hadn’t been mined to death year in the late 80s. And Chuck Dixon manages to write a pretty interesting little story here… It’s not that it takes many unexpected turns in the large, but there are many small details that I didn’t see coming, and that’s always fun.

Zaffino’s layouts are very readable. He usually sticks to traditional panels, but allows significant characters to poke out to great effect: The guard there is what’s important for Our Hero to keep an eye on.

Is Johnny here?

While the series has a satisfying, real end, it leaves things open for a sequel, as they should.

In the backmatter, Dixon explains how he came to work with Zaffino: It was through his connection with Ricardo Villegran.

To no great surprise, this series has been collected by IDW, but the collected edition is in black and white and includes a previously unpublished sequel by Dixon and Zaffino called Wintersea. As Dixon’s web site says:

The one that started it all! Out of print for twenty years, this brutal and suspenseful tale of survival in a frozen future by Chuck Dixon and Jorge Zaffino is one of the most influential comics works of the Eighties.

One of the most influential comics of the Eighties. It says so right there, so it must be true.

There’s also a new ongoing series, apparently, but not with artwork by Zaffino.