Redartz: Welcome one and all! We've arrived at the conclusion of our thrilling threesome of Bronze age comic rankings. Week one was Marvel, last week was DC. Now we cover, well. basically....everyone else. In one sense, this week has been the most difficult to address. Unlike with the 'big two', generally there weren't many comics from other publishers that I followed so devotedly. Of course, there were exceptions.
Incidentally, one challenge for this topic was that some of my favorites failed to qualify (curses, foiled by my own restrictions). There were numerous Disney books from Gold Key, for instance, that I really liked; but they were reprint collections of classic Carl Barks duck stories. Then there were those excellent Warren Spirit magazines. Again, not included as they were reprints. However in that case, you'll see below one semi-exception there that I did sneak in. And with that , let's get started; there's a lot of potential ground to cover!
My Five Favorite Non-Marvel/DC Bronze Age Comics (that was a mouthful):
Archie Giant Series #182 (The World of Archie) - This book sort of acts as a representative of my whole 'Archie' period. Published in 1971, it was one of the earliest Archie books I remember buying. It was a 'giant' comic, with all those extra pages; and I always loved that. This book had many funny stories, and the concluding one was "Teaser for Ceasar": one of those historical tales with
Archie and the gang in ancient Rome. Probably my first exposure to that trope, which became a favorite (especially 'Caveman Archie'). All told, a pretty good early Bronze comic; and a fine visit with the Riverdale crew.
The Spirit (Kitchen Sink Comix) #30- Yep, here's the exception I sneaked in. After Warren ceased publishing the Spirit mags, they were continued (even continuing the numbering) by Kitchen Sink. Still reprints, except for this issue. Issue 30 was the monumental "Spirit Jam", with a new Spirit story written by Eisner. The art included Eisner of course, but also featured. the most spectacular array of creators I'd seen to that point (both artists and other writers contributed to the final product). This book is worth a post of it's own, and I might just do that one of these days. But to whet your interest for it, here's the list of contributors to the book:
Leslie Cabarba, Milton Caniff, Richard Corben, Will Eisner, Denis Kitchen, Pete Poplaski, John Pound, Brent Anderson, Terry Austin, Mike W. Barr, Terry Beatty, Fershid Bharucha, Brian Bolland, John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Max Allan Collins, Ernie Colon, Howard Cruse, Jim Engel, Chuck Fiala, Michael T Gilbert, Archie Goodwin, Fred Hembeck, Todd Klein, Alan Kupperberg, Harvey Kurtzman, Steve Leialoha, Denis McFarling, Frank Miller, Dean Motter, Mike Newhall, Dennis O'Neal, Tom Orzechowski, George Pratt, Sharon Rappaport, Trina Robbins, Marshall Rogers, Don Rosa, Josef Rubenstein, Peter Sanderson, Bill Seinkewicz, Bob Smith, Joe Staton, Ken Steacy, Roger Stern, Mike Tiefenbacher, Len Wein, Alan Weiss, Bob Wiacek, and Cat Yronwode, Whew...
Journey # 6- One of the best features of the late Bronze age was the rise of the "Indie" publishers with all the subsequent creator-owned content. Perhaps my favorite of the 'indies' was "Journey" by William Messner-Loebs. And this issue was my favorite of the series; an enchanting tale with frontiersmen, British "Redcoats", magic, an ancient French mage and formerly dead Spanish conquistadors. Oh, and a sort of crossover with another indie fave, "Neal the Horse" (see number five below). Yes, this issue truly had it all.
Doomsday +1 #1 -There weren't many Charlton books I followed, but this was one. It was quite enjoyable, and was my introduction to the work of John Byrne. And also to Rog 2000.
Charlton Bullseye #2- This was an anthology series, which I sampled occasionally. This particular issue was a biggie; it introduced me to Arn Saba's "Neal the Horse". Not long after this book was out, "Neal" began running in his own charming series published by Aardvark-Vanaheim. The new series was a black and white publication, so this Charlton issue was the only opportunity I had to read "Neal" in color!
Yes, my list is pretty eclectic. And it could easily have been much more so. I'd lay odds that you will have some rather esoteric entries as well. Hope you've been thinking ahead, and are ready to share some Bronze age goodness with the rest of us!
16 comments:
I followed Mike Grell to Jon Sable at First and Starslayer at Pacific. He is my favorite creator of all time. Same with Howard Chaykin reading American Flagg with gusto. I’ve followed them both on just about every project they’ve worked on. Dave Sim’s Cerebus was hilarious and parodied all the comics I was reading at the time. I discovered Cerebus via the Comics Journal by reading a review and reading teeny tiny reprinted panels. I went to several comic stores to get all the back issues and I think I own a real #1.
I discovered Charlton which led me to Don Newton on the Phantom which was beautiful. The painted covers and the interior art wowed me. I also stumbled access Doomsday +1 and Space: 1999 by John Byrne. The Charlton comics were on display table at Woolworth’s mixed in with other comics (Marvel, DC) all marked down from 25 cents to 13 cents. I had found Byrne and Claremont via Marvel Team-Up which led me to Iron Fist (also among the mark downs). I really liked his style even in those early days.
Travis Morgan
At the time, I wasn't really into much non-Marvel/DC stuff; I seem to remember buying the odd Charlton and Gold Key, but not being too impressed. The only Archies I liked were the superhero digests featuring Pureheart, Captain Hero, Superteen, and Evilheart. Years later, I did read Jon Sable and loved it; great Grell art and story, as usual.
There are a few other comics from that time I'd like to check out (American Flagg, Grimjack, Love And Rockets) but I still haven't gotten around to them. One of these days!
This week’s challenge turned out to be a little tougher than I thought it would be, but here’s what I came up with:
THE ROCKETEER SPECIAL EDITION #1 (Eclipse, 1984). Dave Stevens’ gorgeous Pulp/Serial pastiche was one of the highlights of the Independent Era. I remember casually flipping thru STARSLAYER #2, seeing this funky retro strip in the back that looked like Reed Crandall and Frank Frazetta had a baby, drawn by some guy I’d never heard of, and fell head over heels in love. After original publisher Pacific collapsed, Dave moved the strip over to Eclipse to finish off the first storyline in a rousing full-length one-shot Special with his patented mix of derring-do and “Naughty But Nice” cheesecake, cameos by a certain Man of Bronze and two of his assistants, and beautiful “painted” color by Joe Chiodo.
CHILLING ADVENTURES IN SORCERY #3 (Archie, 1973). After two fun, exceedingly odd issues that featured Archie stalwarts Gladir, Doyle, DeCarlo and Goldberg trying their hand at the Mystery/Horror genre, the publisher hired Gray Morrow to put together an anthology with a more traditionally “realistic” look and feel. Later re-titled RED CIRCLE SORCERY, the book had an eclectic vibe, somehow subtly different than the many anthologies published by Charlton and DC. Throughout its 9-issue run — plus 3 issues of MADHOUSE — SORCERY featured “good” to “excellent” art and stories by Morrow, Alex Toth, Frank Thorne, Pat Boyette, Howard Chaykin, Doug Wildey, Vicente Alcazar and others. Morrow wrote and drew the entire first issue ( #3 ) himself, and it’s my favorite.
CREEPY #75 (Warren, 1975). A terrific issue featuring Toth, Severin, Buckler inked by Wood and the stunning “Thrillkill” by Jim Stenstrum and Neal Adams, with a knockout cover by Ken Kelly. This was the first of a truly outstanding run of about ten issues edited by Louise Jones, featuring art and stories by Richard Corben, Bruce Jones, Russ Heath, Al Williamson and five stories by the great Alex Toth.
THRILLING ADVENTURE STORIES #2 (Seaboard, 1975). Unlike Atlas / Seaboard’s other b/w magazines, TAS wasn’t just a knockoff of Warren and Marvel’s Horror mags, but featured an excellent mix of Crime, War, Prehistoric and Exotic Adventure stories (and even one superhero, Tiger-Man making his debut before getting his own four-color comic). Both issues of the short-lived title are great, but #2 has a slight edge, with terrific stories by Toth, Heath and Goodwin / Simonson beneath a nifty Neal Adams cover.
FICTION ILLUSTRATED #3 (Pyramid, 1975). I’m not 100% sure if it’s truly a “comic book” or not — Editor Byron Preiss called it a “Graphic Story Revue” — but I’m going with it. Preiss was forever trying to take Comics to the Next Level, even if he never had a concrete idea of what that level would actually BE. To his credit, he did come up with some fascinating experiments, from his “New American Pulp” anthology WEIRD HEROES, to “Picto-Fiction” style adaptations of works by Alfred Bester, Harlan Ellison and Roger Zelazny. FICTION ILLUSTRATED was pretty much a straight-forward “comic book” — sequential pictures with word balloons and all that — but printed in a “digest” format, with card stock covers and a square spine. Issue #3 is clearly the stand-out, featuring Jim Steranko’s stunning private eye / noir pastiche “Red Tide”. It’s also one of the more successful “Next Level / Graphic Story” hybrids Preiss was ever involved with. Steranko makes the most of the dinky format — each two-page spread has four equal-sized vertical panels of art with rigidly equal-sized blocks of text below. The images never look too small, as often happens when regular-sized comics get shrunk down to digest size. He also wisely opts for a “hi-con” style, with no feathering or “gray” values, so as not to be too hindered by the cruddy printing of the era. The story itself is mostly a collection of character types and story beats from countless private eye pulps and B- movies, but it’s brilliant anyway.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone else’s lists!
b.t.
Byron Preiss' idea of the "next level" seemed to be not using word balloons, so he could make out the books weren't comics b.t.
(Funnily enough, comics actually achieved bourgeois acceptability in the Anglophone world - as "graphic novels" - by doing the exact opposite, when Dark Knight, Watchmen et al ditched the narrative text)
Anyway, heres my top 5:
1. Iron Jaw #1 - Atlas/Seaboard classi... ha ha, no, of course not, I'm only kidding. Seriously now:
1. Heavy Metal #4 - Some might say this doesn't count as most of it was reprints, but if Marvel UK mags are allowed I don't see the problem. Includes a whole load of classic work by the greatest comic artist ever, Moebius - including the opening of The Long Tomorrow (a big influence on the look of Bladerunner according to Ridley Scott), the third part of Arzach, and the one-off Approaching Centauri (with Phillipe Druillet) - an episode of Conquering Armies drawn by the legendary (well, he is to me) Jean-Claude Gal, and stories by the mighty Richard Corben, Vaughn Bode, and Enki Bilal.
2. Judge Dredd Annual 1981 - The definitive Dredd line up: Brian Bolland cover, stories by John Wagner drawn by Mike McMahon. Plus, you also get the short Shok by Kevin O'Neill, and Carlos Ezquerra's first ever Dredd. Zarjaz.
3. Warrior #11 - A few anthologies didn't make the cut because they were uneven. Which is also true of this one, but the two highlights - Marvelman by Alans Moore and Davis, and V for Vendetta by Moore and David Lloyd - would elevate anything (and its not like the rest of it was bad).
Marvelman in particular - the last episode of the first arc, in which our hero finds out he literally is a Fawcett Captain Marvel knock off - was astonishing at the time, and still holds up well now. Probably because so many other comics have imitated it since.
4. Cerebus #50 - The conclusion of the High Society storyline was a landmark issue of my fave ever on-going comic (I don't care what anyone says about Dave Sim, he did great work right up to the final issue).
5. American Flagg #1 - The beginning of Howard Chaykin's greatest. A pity he couldn't keep it up uh, so to speak, for longer.
Honorary mention - The early Love & Rockets mag.
-sean
Oh, and just to be obnoxious, here are a few “Honorable Mentions” :
LOVE AND ROCKETS #4 (Fantagraphics, 1983). Los Bros transitioning away from sci-fi to more “real world” type stories, but still with heavy doses of surrealism. Including early classics “Twitch City” by Gilbert and “100 Rooms” by Jaime.
STAR REACH # 1 (1974). Chaykin, Starlin, Simonson, space opera, sex, violence and psychedelics.
THE PHANTOM #70 (Charlton, 1976). Bill Pearson and Don Newton’s “Maltese Falcon / Casablanca” homage.
TWISTED TALES #5 (Pacific, 1983). Bruce Jones’ edgy EC-style horror anthology was pretty consistently excellent — this issue has solid entries by Richard Corben and Bill Wray, plus the notorious “Banjo Lessons” drawn by Rand Holmes.
AMERICAN FLAGG! #1 (First, 1983). Chaykin’s brilliant Future Shock adventure serial. I re-read this a few months ago and was pleasantly surprised how well it holds up.
HEAVY METAL Vol. 1, No. 1 (1977) — there are undoubtedly “better” issues of this mag, but there’s no denying the impact this one issue had on American Comics fandom. For many of us, it was the first time we were exposed to the likes of Moebius, Druillet, Mezieres and others.
b.t.
Travis- The Comics Journal was a pretty good place to find new titles to explore. And there was much to be seen, there at the dawn of the 'Indie' explosion.
Sounds like you had a great Woolworth's; our local store never had comics ( but they seemed to have everything else)...
Mike W- Those Archie hero books were a lot of fun. They even showed up fairly recently in the current 'modern' Archie universe.
And you named some excellent books, well worth a try. Nice thing about many of those 80's Indies- they're still pretty inexpensive. Often dollar bin fodder, which is sad- some truly fine storytelling...
B.t.- Aw, you can safely name all the "Honorable Mentions" that you want. I won't tell. Glad you brought up "Fiction Illustrated ". Had all those once, wish I'd kept them. Especially Steranko's "Chandler".
Also, here's a 'second'for your Rocketeer praise. Magnificent art, and the story's mighty good too.
Sean- Very good choices! Loved those anthologies. Still do. And regarding Byron Preiss- yes, one wonders if he was to some extent embarrassed by the medium. Will Eisner certainly proved the artistic validity of the comics medium, word balloons and all. Indeed, I miss them in some of today's books. Why run from the basic elements of a storytelling form that has lasted for well over a century?
Redartz, to be fair to Byron Preiss, he was publishing in the mass market - newstands and bookshops - in the 70s, so its understandable imo why he might have wanted to play down the more obvious "comic book" aspects of what he was doing.
Its easy to see in hindsight that the "graphic novels" that did eventually crossover in the 80s were very obviously rooted in comic books - I don't think its a coincidence a Batman book kicked off the boom, and I wonder whether Maus would have caught the public imagination to the extent it did without the "funny animal" conceit... but they all found an initial audience through serialization in the (then new) direct market first.
Btw, Journey was a great choice - definitely the best comic with a character called Wolverine I've ever read.
I recall a whole issue about him being chased by a bear. That was it - man chased by bear. To make that interesting for twenty or so pages was impressive.
-sean
Red - I need to find that Spirit!
Charlie's favs (that he still remembers)
E-Man, 1973, Charlton by Cuti & Staton. I am pretty sure I got this off the magazine rack at Zip foods in Crown Point, Indiana, not off a spinner!
Scorpion, 1975, Atlas, Chaykin. Dig that first cover, with that pulp feel and 1930s setting. (If anyone can tell me that hell happened between issue 1 and 2, I'll buy you an ice cream!)
American Flagg, 1980s, First Comics, Chaykin. Much as I liked it (a lot!) I started to learn that Chaykin's art could be hard to follow.
Sad Sack, Harvey - Any $.25 giant! So many laughs reading these! It is one of the only comics my kids and nephews liked reading 40 years on beside Archies!
Archie - Any $.25 Giant! Like with the Sad Sacks just a whole lot of laughs. And also this is the only other comic, besides Sad Sack, my kids enjoyed.
And that's that!
B.t.w. if this ends our trips down Memory Lane I would like to add that Steranko's History of Comics Volumes 1 and 2 from the mid-70s blew my mind! Big time!
Similarly, Warren's Spirit reprints (after reading Steranko's History Vol 2) was a real treat! Yes, it was a reprint but as a practical matter how else would a kid born in 61 come to know the Spirit who is all but forgotten today by the younger generations.
The no reprint rule is really confounding me for this one, and as with the Marvel and DC, I'm having a real problem isolating single issues of some of my favorite non-Big 2 series, like E-man (Charlton) or Starslayer or Groo (Pacific). I'm also going to break my own rule and pick stuff I didn't pick up and read at the time, rather only later (much later in some cases):
1. Alien: The Illustrated Story (Heavy Metal) - the movie adaptation scripted by Archie Goodwin and drawn by Walt Simonson. An absolutely beautiful book.
2. A Contract with God - the first part of what would later become a trilogy of graphic novels; the great Will Eisner's collection of thematically interconnected stories about life in the Jewish tenements of New York City.
3. Empire (co-published by Byron Preiss) - a space opera written by Samuel Delany and drawn by Howard Chaykin.
4. Scorpion #1 (Atlas/Seaboard) - the young Howard Chaykin playing around with ideas near and dear to his heart. Basically a beta version of Dominic Fortune. The first issue is the stand-out; the second, in which Chaykin got more than a little help from his friends, isn't as strong.
5. Phantom #74 (Charlton) - filled beautiful art from Don Newton, who also drew the stunningly lovely, iconic cover.
By the way, if the no-reprint restriction wasn't included, it would have been easier to pick all stuff that I actually read at the time, and my list probably would have looked like this:
1. Archie's Super-hero Comics Digest Magazine #2 (read it to tatters)
2. and 3. Donald Duck and the Golden Helmet and Uncle Scrooge: The Golden Fleecing
(both published by Whitman on nicer paper with card-stock covers and extra features besides the lead stories, all by the legendary Carl Barks)
4. The Complete Rog 2000 (Pacific) - collecting John Byrne's Rog 2000 back-ups from Charlton's E-man.
5. Darklon the Mystic (Pacific) - collecting Jim Starlin's Darklon features from Eerie Magazine; the stories were also colorized.
To be honest, I can't think of any specific issues that stood out for me but my favourite Charlton Comics were Midnight Tales and The Many Ghosts of Dr Graves.
I had a very small number of Dell and Gold Key comics but none of them overly-gripped me.
Much as I have fondness for Atlas Comics, their output wasn't exactly stellar. I suppose The Phoenix was my favourite of theirs.
In the UK, 2000 AD and House of Hammer were the only game in town, for me.
I loved Alan Class comics but they were just reprint mags, republishing ancient American strips.
Happy Easter to everyone at BiTBA :)
Sean- Glad to find another fan of "Journey" (the comic, not the band in this case). I recall that story you mentioned about the bear; seems like that was actually in the first issue. It was a great, entertaining, and historically fascinating series. Had the great fortune to discuss it with creator William Messner Loebs at a con some years ago.
Charlie- thanks for sending love for Sad Sack and Archie; I'd have expected nothing less! And you should be able to find a copy of that Spirit Jam pretty reasonably. Seems like it was reprinted in another format, as well. At any rate, as a friend of Denny Colt, you would enjoy it thoroughly...
Edo- yes! "A Contract With God" was definitely a high point in Bronze age comics (or sequential art, as Will would put it). And regarding the reprints- you make a good argument for devoting a post just to Bronze age reprint editions. Maybe we'll hit that soon; the Bronze age apparently served as a launchpad for such collections of older comic work as hadn't been attempted seriously before...
Steve DC- Charlton had several of those horror titles, as did Gold Key. Even Archie ventured into the genre. Were any of your UK comics, or perhaps Annuals, devoted to the horror field?
Colin J- A Happy Easter right back at you! And the same to everyone who remembers (or would like to remember) what it was like Back in the Bronze Age!
Red, the only British comics I can think of that were dedicated entirely to horror were House of Hammer, which was a magazine-sized comic that did adaptations of Hammer films, and Misty which was a weekly girls' comic.
From memory, it was quite common for girls' comics to have horror strips in them, although those were usually mixed-in with romance tales, adventure strips, tales of orphans, boarding schools, ballerinas, showjumpers and gymnasts, rather than having their own dedicated books.
I don't remember the boys' weekly comics ever doing horror. They were usually about sport and/or warfare.
Steve, the boys mixed anthologies had horror strips too like, say, Jack O'Justice in Valiant (although maybe "supernatural fantasy" might be a better term).
Red, horror comics were actually illegal in the UK under the 1955 Children And Young Persons (Harmful Publications Act). So far as I know, they still are (!) but in practice the law was a hangover from an earlier time - a couple of EC reprints were used as evidence in Parliament - and by the 70s censorship legislation generally wasn't enforced as much.
So apart from Marvel UK's Dracula Lives, the horror comics aimed at kids in the 70s were humour titles like Monster Fun and Shiver & Shake - sorta like Cor, but with strips Frankie Stein.
In the wake of 2000AD, when IPC experimented more with genre comics other than war and football, as well as Misty they also put out the short-lived Scream. If you're interested -
www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/08/alan-moore-early-comic-monster-republished-original-panels
-sean
Some great comics mentioned and agree with most. My choices would be:
Hell Rider #1 (Skywald) 1971. As a kid US black and whites mags were always a treat, I was used to the companies Nightmare, Psycho etc output but this mag combined horror and superhero types, which was new to me as an 11/12 year old. In hindsight the back up strip Butterfly was probably the most significant character being the first black lady heroine ( and it was a good strip) .
Destroyer Duck #1 (Eclipse) 1982. Only as it featured the first appearance of the excellent Sergio Aragones Groo the barbarian.
Mighty Crusaders #1 (Red Circle) 1983. A personal choice as the Mighty Crusaders hold a special place in my comic book memories with issue 4 (Too many Super heroes) of the mid 60s comic being the first US comic I bought on my own. Rich Bucklers version in the 80s were fun and deserved better success imho .
E Man (Charlton) Probably the best ever non Marvel/DC comic character . A fun, fresh , clever and entertaining book with some excellent back up strips (Rog 2000)
Thrilling Adventure Stories #2 (Skywald/Atlas) A near perfect anthology issue. Can't add more to "b t's" comments above.
Archie comics. Any Archie title from the early to mid 70s with Dan De Carlo art. Always makes me smile and no doubt were an (art) inspection for the excellent Love and Rockets comic
Others for me would be Warrior, Sabre and the Rog 2000 special , Neat Stuff
Sean- interesting that horror books were verboten in the UK. Reminiscent of the controversies in the US during the fifties; centered around the Kefauver hearings and "Seduction of the Innocent". It was quite awhile before really mysterious mystery comics reappeared...
McScotty- Excellent choices. Groo is wonderful, and Aragones is brilliant. As for Archie, you can never go wrong with Dan DeCarlo; although I've developed a real fondness for the work of Harry Lucey as well...
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