Bulletproof

Lew Stringer has posted that the first issue of a new British comic anthology, Bulletproof, is due out shortly.

There are preview pages up here. The remit is “sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, action, adventure.” That’s the cover image above, apparently trying to combine as many of those genres as possible. The interior pages previewed have, fortunately, much less of a 1990s Image feel to them.

The homepage for Bulletproof Comics hasn’t been updated in three years, so I see why Lew refers to this as “long-awaited”.

Update, later that day I see that Garen Ewing says that he inked one of the strips in Bulletproof issue 1 back in 1994. So it's even more long-awaited than I had thought!

Wonder Hairspray

In this exciting adventure from Teen Titans issue 50, previewed by Newsarama, the Titans try out different styling products to see which best keeps their hair in place while upside down.


Looks like Wonder Girl has the winner!

Children of Britain

A couple more thoughts about that International Herald Tribune article.

“In Britain the comic has long been considered, well, just a bit juvenile,” it says. And quite reasonably so, given the evidence. If you look at the list of comics periodicals on the Down the Tubes site, you’ll find about 100 titles. Those that aren’t intended for juveniles can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Of those, two - 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine - appeal to the same arrested adolescent taste as superheroes, which in turn make up about a quarter of the comics, graphic novels and manga on the shelves of British bookshops. Since those manga are almost all shonen or shojo – originally intended for teenagers, not adults - that leaves quite a thin sliver of even the book market that the Herald Tribune addresses remaining as anything other than “just a bit juvenile”.

Mind you, adults aren’t entirely adverse to comic strips, provided that they are comical. The cubicles of England (how drearily they stand) are just as likely to be decorated with tattered yellowing Dilberts as offices anywhere. Viz, whose “Not For Sale To Children” warning appears at the top of this post, may not clear a million copies an issue anymore, but the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures, posted by Steve Holland on his Bear Alley blog, give it sales of over 94,000 a time, the third highest for any comic. Even so, it may be significant that Viz, like the comic strip features in Private Eye, gets a lot of humorous mileage from the dissonance between its adult content and its self-consciously childish and traditional comics form, which closely apes the style and grammar of the Beano.

It may seem odd to focus on the periodical market when the Herald Tribune article was about graphic novels, but the two are linked.

“With publishers in Britain still mainly taking on works from the Canadian graphic novel publishers Drawn & Quarterly, as well as the American Pantheon and Fantagraphics, the incentive to find homegrown talent is high,” says the Herald Tribune.

That’s to slight a little bit the publisher Carroll & Graf, whose Robinson imprint will be bringing out a second Mammoth Book of Best New Manga later this year. The previous volume was mostly British in origin.

And, of course, there are lots of British creators on the shelves. It’s just that they are mostly working for US publishers, telling tales of men in tights, or for 2000AD, regaling us with stories of hard men with guns. Jonathan Cape and Faber & Faber, on the other hand, are looking for the sort of respectable art comics that will get reviewed on the book pages of the broadsheets (perhaps “literary comics” might be a better term for this market, as reviewers tend to treat them as if they were a novelty form of prose).

It is noticeable that even Jonathan Cape, which has the biggest graphic novel list of any of the mainstream publishers at the moment, only has three British creators in print – Raymond Briggs, Posy Simmonds and Bryan Talbot. And with Talbot, I’m not sure how far Cape established a relationship themselves, rather than re-importing his work for Dark Horse.

It’s not hard to see why this shortage exists. There is nowhere to nurture the creators of such work. There is no British equivalent of Kramer’s Ergot, Mome or Drawn and Quarterly, nowhere to plug the gap between the self-publishing and micro-press covered by BugPowder and the full-size books that Cape and Faber want. Not only is there no Fantagraphics or Top Shelf, there is not even an SLG or Oni.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Escape and Deadline filled this role. They didn’t last long, but they did provide significant exposure for the likes of Philip Bond, Eddie Campbell, Glenn Dakin, Jamie Hewlett and Rian Hughes (as well as Best New Manga editor Ilya). It’s not clear to me where their present-day counterparts could go. The short story contest that Cape is organising with the Observer newspaper and the ICA is welcome, but unless it becomes a regular thing, it is unlikely to have much long-term impact. Perhaps a shortage of publishing entrepreneurs is more a problem than a shortage of creative talent.

Maybe the new British talent is all on the web. If so, I’ve missed it so far. Anyone have any suggestions about what I should look for?

Friday Night Fights: The Greatest

For the cruel amusement of Bahlactus and his invited guests, we present the one-sided fight between the greatest athlete in the Roman army …


… and a passing Gaulish villager.


How do you think it will go, Gluteus Maximus?


All right then, let the fight begin!




Panels
Asterix at the Olympic Games, text by René Goscinny, drawings by Albert Uderzo, 1968, translated by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge, Brockhampton Press, 1972

World of Books

At this point, I was going to post something about the increasing interest of mainstream book publishers in comics, illustrated by the issue by HarperCollins of a series of comics albums adapting Agatha Christie’s whodunnits and by the news that Faber & Faber (best known as T S Eliot’s publisher) will be bringing out Adrian Tomine’s books in the UK. But this article from the International Herald Tribune (link via Blog@Newsarama) already ties up those threads and others more elegantly and informatively than I could. It also contains the startling information that sales of graphic novels at Waterstone’s, Britain's biggest chain of bookshops, have grown by 41% over the last year. Mind you, without knowing the absolute numbers, that may or may not be significant. Going from selling 1 copy of a book a year to selling 2 is a 100% rise, but isn’t going to make the author rich.

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Murder on the Orient Express, from the novel by Agatha Christie, adapted by Francois Riviere (editor) and Solidor (artist). Image taken from BBC News

Solomon’s Long Shadow

Just to hammer away relentlessly at an imagined point of resemblance …

Solomon Kane:



The Shadow:


Lamont Cranston? Kent Allard? Mere blinds!


Pictures and Panels
Illustrations by Gary Gianni to Robert E Howard The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, Wandering Star Books and Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 1998

The Shadow “In The Coils of Leviathan” part 3 by Michael Wm Kaluta and Joel Goss (writers), Gary Gianni (illustrator), James Sinclair (colourist), Todd Klein (letterer) and Robert Boyd (editor), Dark Horse Comics, 1994

The Drab Garb of Solomon Kane

Comic Book Resources has posted an interview with Dark Horse Comics editor and writer Scott Allie, discussing his upcoming series about Robert E Howard’s Solomon Kane.

As Allie notes, “Of the three main Robert E. Howard characters — Conan, Kull, and Kane — Kane's the one that exists in an actual historical era — the end of the sixteenth century. He's a Puritan adventurer with a military history and he's driven by a sense of vengeance.”

Howard’s stories and poems do indeed place Solomon Kane at the end of the sixteenth century. He was present when Sir Francis Drake executed Thomas Doughty in 1578, and served under Sir Richard Grenville when his ship the Revenge single-handedly fought a 53-ship Spanish fleet in 1591. Both of these were real events.

But pictures of Solomon Kane always show him in the clothes of the mid-to-late 17th century, as in Gary Gianni’s fine illustrations (above and below) to the 1998 edition of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane.


In real life, men in the late Elizabethan period looked like this:



The appearance of fighting men who could not afford to have their portraits painted has been reconstructed like this:



I am not sure where the depiction of Kane as a 17th century version of the Shadow started. There does not seem to have been a single moment when a definitive version of Solomon Kane was created (unlike Howard’s better known character, Conan, whose appearance was fixed by Frank Frazetta’s paperback covers in the 1960s, which marked a sharp break from the short-haired, blandly handsome version who appeared in illustrations to the original publication of the stories in Weird Tales). The way that Gianni portrayed Kane was consistent with the appearance of the character in various Marvel comics of the 1970s and 1980s.




The Marvel version, in turn, drew on the covers painted by Jeff Jones for 1960s small-press book collections.




But, as you can see, the Jones version is quite vague in its details. Those are the earliest pictures of Solomon Kane that I have found. If there were any illustrations to his appearances in Weird Tales, I would love to see them, but I haven’t yet.

So far as I know, only one artist has given Solomon Kane a distinctly different appearance: Howard Chaykin in a story for Marvel’s Savage Sword of Conan.


But I find it hard to recommend this version. The tabard and hooped rugby-jersey sleeves seem neither in period nor in character.

So why is Kane always depicted anachronistically? Partly, I think, because the word “puritan” always throws up images of roundheads, pilgrim fathers and Salem witch-hunters, although it was in use, mostly as an insult, earlier than that. But in part, it is just that, even when toned down (as in Shakespeare in Love), Elizabethan menswear, with its stiff doublets and hose, pantaloons and ruffs, looks distinctly silly to 21 century eyes.

Will Dark Horse take up the challenge of creating a different but historically appropriate Solomon Kane? Or will they stick with the familiar, easy but anachronistic version? We’ll have to wait and see.


Pictures and panels
Illustrations by Gary Gianni to Robert E Howard The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, Wandering Star Books and Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 1998

Anonymous Sir Walter Raleigh and his Son, c 1591, National Portrait Gallery, London, reproduced in Francois Boucher A History of Costume in the West, Thames & Hudson, 1966

Isaac Oliver The Three Brothers Brown, 1598, Collection of Lord Exeter at Burlington House, photo by Courtauld Institute of Art, reproduced in Francois Boucher A History of Costume in the West, Thames & Hudson, 1966

Plates by Richard Hook for John Tincey The Armada Campaign 1588, Osprey Books Elite Serries no 15, 1988

Solomon Kane “The Hills of the Dead”, script by Roy Thomas, adapted from the story by Robert E Howard, art by Alan Weiss and Neal Adams, Kull and the Barbarians issue 2, Marvel Comics, July 1975, reprinted in The Savage Sword of Conan issue 16, Marvel UK, February 1979

Solomon Kane “The Prophet!” by Ralph Macchio (scripter), Mike Mignola (penciller), Al Williamson (inker), Joe Rosen (letterer), Bob Sharen (colourist) and Carl Potts (editor), (The Sword of) Solomon Kane issue 4, Marvel Comics, March 1986

Jeff Jones, cover illustration to Robert E Howard Red Shadows, Donald Grant books, 1968, scan taken from the Howard Works website

Jeff Jones, cover illustration to Robert E Howard The Moon of Skulls, Centaur Press, 1969, scan taken from the Howard Works website

Jeff Jones, cover illustration to Robert E Howard The Hand of Kane, Centaur Press, 1970, scan taken from the Howard Works website

Solomon Kane “Rattle of Bones", script by Roy Thomas, adapted from the story by Robert E Howard, art by Howard Chaykin, Savage Sword of Conan issue 18, Marvel Comics, April 1977, reprinted in The Savage Sword of Conan issue 20, Marvel UK, June 1979

Silken Scarlett

According to the Hollywood Reporter (link via Blog@Newsarama), Scarlett Johansson is being cast in Frank Miller’s film of The Spirit as Silken Floss, “a sexy and intelligent secretary with a vindictive instinct that makes her the perfect accomplice to the Octopus”.

Will Eisner had a character called Silken Floss too - Dr Silken Floss, who was both a nuclear physicist and a brilliant surgeon.


I’ve no wish to denigrate secretaries, but it is notable that Eisner was able to envisage women in prestigious non-traditional careers in 1947, whereas Miller, in 2007, isn’t able to do the same.

Still, it’s a change from the two professions into which Miller usually fits his female characters: whoredom and assassination. Those of Miller’s fans who resent this step may take comfort from the thought that, the last time he had to write about a secretary, Karen Page from Daredevil, he immediately turned her into a junkie porn performer instead.


Panel
The Spirit “Silken Floss MD”, Comic Book Section, 9 March 1947, reprinted in The Spirit Archives Volume 14, DC Comics, 2004

The Advantages of Time Travel

Never mind all this Booster Gold “time-is-broken-and-I-must-fix-it” stuff. This week’s comics show what time travel is really good for.

Without a time machine, Little Plum is stuck with the Kaiser Chiefs.


With a time machine, the Doctor and Martha can enjoy something a little more … definitive.


(Incidentally, I know he’s been doing it for a while, but I still find it unsettling to see Hunt Emerson drawing for The Beano. It’s like Gilbert Shelton working on Archie Comics, or Crumb drawing Daffy Duck.)

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Little Plum, art by Hunt Emerson, The Beano Max issue 7, D C Thomson, September 2007

Doctor Who “Signs of Life” part 1, script by Trevor Baxendale, art by John Ross, colours by Alan Craddock, letters by Paul Vyse, Doctor Who Adventures issue 37, BBC Magazines, 16 August to 29 August 2007

More from Mytek

I love this panel.


Because, after all, there is a severe shortage of big game hunters in the North of England. Who will protect the laboratories of Cleethorpes from man-eating lions, or cull the herds of wildebeest that threaten to overrun the giant robot factories of Hartlepool?

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Mytek the Mighty, art by Eric Bradbury, as reprinted in Vulcan, IPC Magazines, 29 November 1975

Ape Addendum: Mytek the Mighty

Michael Eury’s Comics Gone Ape, published by TwoMorrows, is an amusing guide to apes and monkeys in American comics. In addition to interviews with noted ape artists like Joe Kubert, the late Bob Oksner and Carmine Infantino, Eury catalogues a vast array of chimps, gorillas, mandrills, baboons, orang-utans and monkeys from seventy years of US comics.

But there is one big – very big – omission.

Now, you might argue that he has no place in a book about apes in American comics, being a British creation. But if Don Uggie Apelino from Judge Dredd merits an entry (by virtue of reprints), so should Mytek the Mighty.

Mytek’s merits are threefold. Not only is he a gorilla; not only is he a robot; not only is he a giant – he’s a giant robot gorilla. The perfect combination.


Oh, did I forget to mention? A lot of the time, he’s an underwater giant robot gorilla.

So, why would anyone build a giant robot gorilla? To take up the White Man’s Burden, of course! The International Catalogue of Superheroes explains:

“Professor Boyce was a scientist working on research projects in Africa. After his laboratory was destroyed by the warriors of the local Akari tribe, a gameskeeper friend of his, Dick Mason, told him of how the tribesmen worshipped a clay statue of a giant ape ‘Mytek’ which symbolised the powers of strength and destruction. Inspired by this, the scientist designed a colossal robot in the form of that ape, hoping to employ it to convince the tribe to give up their warlike ways.”

Now, Mytek the Mighty was created in 1964. Britain’s empire in Africa was being dismantled fast. In the years since the Suez debacle of 1956, Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Tanganyika, Uganda, Kenya, Gambia, Zambia and Malawi had all attained independence. But in the offices of Fleetway Publications, it was still the age of Henry Morton Stanley.


Boyce’s plans backfire when his creation is stolen by his assistant, Gogra, always referred to as “the evil dwarf” (because, if you’re going to be racially insensitive, why not stereotype short people too? It worked for Randy Newman).

Naturally, the Akaris are subdued. Gogra is defeated, time and again. Mytek spontaneously gains a degree of intelligence. Sometimes, he works for, or is controlled by, the good guys. But who cares? The important thing is that he does what a giant robot gorilla should do: he stomps and smashes and smushes, in Eric Bradbury’s rough-hewn, vigorous artwork.







Mytek the Mighty ran in the weekly comic Valiant until 1970. Coloured reprints (from which these scans are taken) appeared in Vulcan in the mid 1970s. And then Mytek disappeared for a while.

In 1992, Fleetway, looking to capitalise on the success of 2000AD, published the 2000AD Action Special, containing revamped versions of a number of old characters from the Fleetway, Odhams and IPC stable, including The Steel Claw, The Spider, Kelly’s Eye and, of course, Mytek the Mighty.

In this version, written by Si Spencer, there is a real giant gorilla called Mytek, who defends the African tribesman against nasty white colonialists, who are oppressing the people with a robot Mytek.


The sympathies have rotated 180 degrees, but the stereotypes of natural, mystical Africans, and technological white civilisation are just as strong and patronising as ever. The strip is also sabotaged by the choice of artist: Shaky Kane, an absurdist humorist who drew in a style inspired by Jack Kirby. The combination of po-faced script and deliberately silly artwork made this effort fall flat on its face. And, crucially, there was no stomping.

So, why do I think that Mytek the Mighty deserved a place in Comics Gone Ape? Well, alongside many old Fleetway characters, he appeared in Albion, Wildstorm’s attempt to relaunch these old British stalwarts into the American market. And although he is not in many panels, Mytek is pretty hard to miss. If nothing else, he isn’t an indistinguishable old man in a prison uniform, like so many of the other characters here.


So, please, Mr Eury, if you ever produce a second edition, perhaps to cover the new Kryptonite Monkey and Jackanapes, please spare a thought for Mytek - before he comes looking for you.

(Seriously, the book is well worth reading as it stands. I just wanted a hook for this post.)

Update, 17 August Scans Daily displays an alternative, but equally hairy, giant robot - Moortek the Mighty, by Rick Veitch.


Pictures and Panels
Comics Gone Ape: The Missing Link to Primates in Comics by Michael Eury, TwoMorrows Publishing, 2007, cover by Arthur Adams

Mytek the Mighty, art by Eric Bradbury, as reprinted in Vulcan, IPC Magazines, 27 September 1975 to 6 March 1976

Mytek the Mighty “Mytek Lives”, written by Si Spencer, drawn by Shaky Kane, colouring by Jo Flatters, lettering by Glib Glibby, 2000AD Action Special, Fleetway Editions, 1992

Albion issue 6 “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” by Alan Moore (plot), Leah Moore & John Reppion (script), Shane Oakley (pencils), George Freeman (inks), Peter Guzman (additional inks), Wildstorm FX (colours), Todd Klein (letters) and Scott Dunbier (editor), Wildstorm/DC Comics, November 2006

Too Soon

Newsarama reports the death from a heart attack of Mike Wieringo, at the shockingly young age of 44. His art always contained an even more youthful exuberance, grounded by unusually solid craft. His blog revealed not just a thoughtful and diligent professional artist, but a pleasant and amusing man. Condolences to his family and friends.


In Fantastic Four issue 511, Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo sent the FF through the afterlife to meet God, only to learn that, in their world, He is a comic book artist. He may look like Jack Kirby, but He draws like Ringo. Thank you for your ideas and notions, Mike.

Panels
Fantastic Four issue 511 “Hereafter” part 3, written by Mark Waid, pencilled by Mike Wieringo, inked by Karl Kesel, coloured by Paul Mounts, lettered by Virtual Calligraphy’s Randy Gentile, edited by Tom Brevoort, reprinted in Fantastic Four, Volume 4: Hereafter, Marvel Comics, 2004