Comics and DC's Golden Age

 Comic Strips: With Comi-Con, it appears a few of the strips over the last couple of weeks wanted to get in on the act. Gotta love "Fox Trot" for embracing the various ages. Where else are you going to run the gamut of Hit Girl to the Jay Garrick Flash? Even DC Comics doesn't want to do that. OK, the "Get Fuzzy" comic has nothing to do with superheroes. Sometimes a pun is its own reward.

Herogoggles: Speaking of Golden-Age DC, over at my golden-age superheroes/supervillains website, I have added pages devoted to DC's heroes and villains of the Golden-Age.. As my brother pointed out, I basically am admitting the project will NEVER be completed because there's no real way for me to read all of DC's comics of the Golden-Age. I don't have the money to buy them and that limits me to the ones they are willing to reprint. And, most of the reprint books like the Archives are devoted to characters, rarely the whole comics. Luckily with the All-Star Archives, they included the Hop Harrigan text stories for example since that wasn't part of the JSA. Marvel's output was a bit smaller with titles and characters having much smaller runs once you look past the big three of Captain America, Human Torch, and Namor. So, it's a bit easier for them to devote a hardback to Mystic Comics for example. It does mean, that certain stories tend to get reprinted a half dozen times. Such as their recent "Marvel Firsts" devoted to the Golden-Age. I was tempted, but I already had half the book in other volumes!

In putting together the lists of characters that I wanted to cover from various sources, I started also looking at the copyrights of a few of the early titles. It was interesting to discover that "New York World's Fair Comics" was not renewed. In addition to having a few Superman, Batman stories in public domain, it's also the first appearance of the Wesley Dodd Sandman! It also occurred to me that some of the public domain comics might actually be availabe. And, a few of them are, over at comics.org! Of course, the quality of the scans vary wildly. Which is sad, since stories with characters like "Wing Brady" and "Barry O'Neil" look like they'd be fun to read. The latter especially has wonderfully dense and detailed artwork, heads above much of what was being published at the time or even years later. You'd have to look at Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, or Alex Raymond for comparable work. However, this makes the strip pretty much a strain on the eyes and unreadable when it comes to low resolution or microfiche reproduction. Barry O'Neil's ongoing war with the Yellow Peril menace Fang Gow continued from the public domain comics over to Detective Comics.

What's enjoyable is to see all of the Siegel and Shuster strips: Radio Patrol, Dr. Occult, Henri Duval, etc. The artwork is open and expressive. Plus, the duo really exploded the limits of the medium, they exploited the visual sides of the medium. The heroes were men of physical action, the menaces larger than life. It's a shame there are a few holes, but how great to see Dr. Occult in action. Henri Duval was a musketeer hero whose storyline just sort of ends to be replaced by an adaptation of The Three Musketeers itself.  The duo must have liked the name as they used it again for a villain to face Dr. Occult.

Sadly, the comics they have seems to run out before getting to Captain Desmo and Nadir. Nadir is a fascinating character. In some ways, he seems to borrow a bit from Chandu, Mandrake, the Shadow... a man brings knowledge gained in the Far East to fight crime. The difference is Nadir reverses the status quo. He's a prince of India! His origin might seem a little familiar, his parents killed when he was a lad he decides to turn his back on his title and devote his life to fighting crime! He masters not only ancient knowledge of the East, he also masters the sciences of the West and now makes his home in New York City!

Then there's the Flying Fox. An aviation hero whose aviator's cap doubles as a fox mask. Sadly, he's not public domain, so the only way to see that character will be buying the original comics or hoping DC makes it available some day. DC would be smart to really gather a lot of this material for posterity and preservation. Even if not making any plans for printing, just making them available digitally for historical purposes. Although a volume of Siegel and Shuster's work would seem to be easily feasible. Most of these were b/w or one color to begin with so reprinting would be cheap enough and you'd imagine there would be some interest in seeing these stories from the creators of their flagship character.

While DC has acknowledged the Crimson Avenger as pre-dating Superman as a masked hero, it's interesting to see Dr. Occult as a brief caped hero with super-powers. Captain Desmo, who like the Flying Fox was an aviation hero whose cowl doubled as a mask, also squeaks by debuting before Superman.  Desmo had some kind of issue, he wore the cowl constantly, even when lounging in his own home. His sidekick asks him about it, but Desmo doesn't get around to sharing that information. The Flying Fox would debut just a few months later.

For a recent birthday, got a few comics related stuff. First, up was Guardians of Being by Eckhart Tolle (great name) and Patrick McDonnell. It's a book using Mutts strips to impart a little zen like wisdom to the reader. This generation's Gospel According to Peanuts or The Tao of Pooh.

I love McDonnells artwork. I would have no problem with him being listed as the best cartoonist working today. His drawings appear almost deceptively simple. A few lines here and there and he all the movement, mood and likeness that is needed. More than any other cartoonist on the newspages captures the sheer emotion and range. When the size of comics has reduced most strips to talking heads, his have running, dancing, nut-throwing, tail-wagging... his characters seem always to be in the midst of life, even if they are just sleeping.

He's an artist that knows his history. Not just comic strip history, a big fan of Charles Schulz and George Herriman. But, his strips also reference classical and pop art with abandon, especially if you're lucky to have a Sunday paper that includes the header, a title panel that is trimmed by many papers, so artists are prone to make the first panel superfluous. McDonnell uses it to parody great works of art only with his characters.

The book has a couple of allusions that sneak up on you. Such as the one panel that is a take on Norman Rockwell's "Freedom From Fear" painting. Another page of birds singing in the trees and a lake as a set of three vertical panels and I'm reminded of classic Asian art with their vertical pieces capturing birds and branches with just a minimal of brush strokes.

McDonnell's work can be found a variety of places. I have a book of his, Me...Jane a children's book about the childhood life of Jane Goodall, the beginnings of her love for nature and her love-hate relationship with the mate of Tarzan. He also currently has a children's book called The Monsters' Maker about three little monsters who set out to create the biggest, baddest monster of all. Only like the other famous monster maker, the end result is not exactly what they expected to find. I even have a classical music cd with his artwork on the cover.

Tarpe Mills and Miss Fury is a gorgeous hardbound collection of many of the Miss Fury strips. Sadly, it's not from the very beginning, but it does include one day's strip that manages to nicely encapsulate everything you need to know about the character and her status quo.  Even if it didn't, it has a nice foreword that manages to cover many of the recurring characters and themes from the strip. It also provides a nice background to the life of Tarpe Mills. I won't go into it here, go out and buy the book. But, it should be noted that Tarpe Mills was one of the first female comic book creators. Not just an artist but creating, writing and drawing strips for Centaur Comics. She is the artist behind the notable Purple Zombie. It's common knowledge that many of the artists and creators worked in comics with their eyes sighted on working on newspaper strips. She was one of the few that actually achieved that in Miss Fury. Despite running for quite a few years, and predating Wonder Woman to the presses to boot, she'd probably be more forgotten today than she is if not for Timely Comics actually printing some of her newspaper adventures in comic book form way back in the day. After all, comic books, even ones from a half century ago, are a bit more collectible and easier to come across than newspaper strips that died out before man walked on the moon. Busy with other projects, haven't gotten beyond reading the intro to this one yet. The character seems to possibly be having a bit of a revamp. She appeared in the background of one of Marvel's The Twelve issues (think it was the tie-in issue). She is also slated to appear in Dynamite's Masks mini-series alongside various pulp and comicbook heroes, though there has been no art depicting her yet. Would not be surprised if we don't see an announcement in a week or two of Dynamite publishing a mini-series or ongoing with Ms Fury, as they are calling her,
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About the only Marvel NOW title that sounds remotely interesting is a new title featuring Morbius the "living" vampire. I like Morbius, he was the villain in the first Spider-man comic I ever got. A superhero fighting a vampire AND a werewolf!? C'mon, what kid is going to resist that?

Cannot say I'm a fan of the unfinished artwork that they've released. Looks a little cold and the hand of the computer looks to be evident. And, the artwork of him has him looking like Michael Jackson. Creepy for whole 'nother reasons.

The gold standard will always be Gil Kane. Can't get him, but at least get someone that draws action well and knows how to set mood and atmosphere.