Howard The Duck was created by Steve Gerber in a 1973 issue of Man-Thing. It didn’t take long for the character to graduate to his own book and Gerber used him as a surrogate for his own voice in a series of fascinating social satires.
Unfortunately, nobody at Marvel noticed that Howard wasn’t really a character, he was just Gerber with feathers. Which meant that nobody but Gerber could (or should) try to write Howard The Duck.
So of course Marvel fired him.
They could have just cancelled the book, let it go out on a high note. Didn’t happen. Gerber was followed by several writers in rapid succession, most of them decent but none of them Howard. The series continued for awhile in its existing format and when sales slumped, Marvel, never very good at taking a hint, moved Howard to a black and white magazine format.
The stories never got better, Gerber didn’t come back, and the magazine died a slow, painful death.
Many years later, under different management, Marvel asked Gerber to come back and write a new Howard The Duck mini series under Marvel’s adult imprint, Marvel Max.
Unfortunately, Gerber only managed to prove that even Gerber isn’t Gerber anymore….
Put out by Pacific Comics in the early eighties, Somerset Holmes was a six issue homage to film noir that should be long forgotten by now.
The only problem with that is the series was too damned good. The script by Bruce Jones worked perfectly and the art, by Brent Eric Anderson working from live models, was evocative and haunting.
A perfect example of the kind of storytelling that independent comic companies do best, Somerset could easily be sat alongside any modern work by Brubaker or Rucka and feel nicely at home.
If Alan Moore opened the door for what would eventually become Vertigo, Neil Gaiman not only walked through that door, he did it with such style and panache that everyone else wanted to follow him in.
Blessed with an imagination as vivid as it is surreal, Neil introduced us to Dream, the Lord of the Dreamworld and one of The Endless. The stories move in and out of our world, through various times and places in a way that no comic had really done before. It was mythic storytelling at its purist.
Gaiman has since become a famous novelist, many of his works have been adapted to film and he’s on track to be directing his first movie in the near future, bringing Dream’s sister, Death, to the big screen and his own career full circle back to The Endless.
If I hear one more fan bitching about the casting of their favorite super hero, I’m going to beat them in the head with a baseball bat.
Stop it, you lucky little shits.
Listen, the current crop of comic movies over the last few years? All of them have been damn close to perfect compared to what we got in the seventies.
So you don’t like Ben Affleck as Daredevil? Tough.
Look at what we had for Captain America….
In 1984, DC decided to upgrade several of their best selling titles to be printed on a higher quality paper similar to what they used for their awesome reprint minis.
What they did, (and here’s where it gets weird) is relaunch three of their titles. The New Teen Titans, The Legion of Superheroes and The Outsiders. However, they didn’t cancel the previous version. They just retitled the old newsprint books as Tales of The Teen Titans, Tales of The Legion and Adventures of The Outsiders.
For one year the books continued independently, with the deluxe books taking place about a year in the future, kinda sorta. When the year was up, the newsprint book would start reprinting the tales from the deluxe book.
Confused yet?
.
DC had been second rate for years.
It never mattered that they had the more recognizable characters, the big guns so to speak.
Marvel had the depth. A solid list of creators who, creatively, were all on the same page. And when the new X-Men hit in the mid 70’s, all bets were off. The already existing gap between companies got wider and wider.
The Marvel Maniacs wouldn’t even look at a DC book.
Until 1980.
Tucked inside an issue of a Superman team-up book called DC Comics Presents was a 16 page preview for the New Teen Titans. Now, the old Titans never really boasted record sales. But then, neither did the old X-Men.
This new incarnation was written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by perhaps the best team book artist in the business, George Perez.
The preview was followed by issue 1. It didn’t take long before The New Teen Titans became a sales juggernaut, comfortably competing with the X-Men and pulling the rest of the DC line up with it.
Being a writer of private eye fiction myself, I’d be remiss if I didn’t do an entry about the best P.I. series comics ever produced. Nathaniel Dusk appeared in two 4 issue mini series by DC Comics, one in 1984, the other in 1985.
Set in Depression-era New York City, dust was every bit as hard boiled as Marlowe or Spade. Don McGregor’s love of the genre permeated the script and Gene Colan’s art just oozed atmosphere.
All the standard conventions of the genre are here, and they’re all handled extremely well.
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon than sitting down to read a Nathaniel Dusk mini series. They may be tough to find, but they’re well worth the effort.
I still remember the thrill I felt the first time I walked into a comic shop.
Before that, I had purchased my comics from those spinning metal racks in drug stores and grocery stores. The only back issues I had ever gotten came from flea markets and yard sales.
So when Alternate Worlds opened in Cockeysville, MD, all those years ago, I was there the first day. After all, it was only a ten minute walk from my apartment, even if I did have to cross York Rd, which was scary as hell to a kid of 13 (I think, my memory has never been great when it come to dates).
Concrete steps led down to the little white building that housed the store where I would spend much of my free time for the next few years. Box after box filled with treasures beyond my imagination. Before I had stepped into that store, I had loved comics. Afterwards, that love had become a life long addiction.
The store moved several years later. Not far, just across the street and around the corner, into one of those snazzy shopping centers. It gets more traffic these days. I haven’t been there in ages. Haven’t been back to Maryland in years.
I should stop by the next time I visit Baltimore. Maybe next year.
You should stop by, too, if you’re in the area. I bet Mike McKenzie still owns the place. Tell him Kevin Glover said hello…..
Another of my favorite characters to come out of 80’s Marvel is Moon Knight. Originally intended as a one off villain in Werewolf By Night, Doug Moench quickly realized that he had his hands on something potentially great.
At first he was little more than a Batman clone, but as he grew into his own, the similarities faded. While Batman’s motivation had always been vengeance for the death of his parents, Moon Knight was looking for redemption for all the bad things that he had done in his life as a mercenary.
Also, Moon Knight was crazy.
Not just, you have to be crazy to wear a costume and fight crime crazy. I mean full-blown, batshit crazy. Four separate and distinct personalities trapped in one man.
Moon Knight, like Iron Fist, is going through something of a resurgence these days with a new book by crime novelist Charlie Hudson. It’s a pretty good book, too. Give it a try.
According to Newarama, IDW is prepping a new Doctor Who comic, written by Gary Russell and featuring the Tenth Doctor.
The article gives a brief history of The Doctor in comics and segues into an interview with Russell about his plans for the comic.
It all sounds very good, and to add some icing to the cake, IDW will be doing newly colored reprints of the old Dave Gibbons strips from Dr. Who Weekly.
Can we get a “WOOT, WOOT!” from the audience?
