Golden Age Gallery: Freakout Thursday

Posted on by

On Tuesday I posted some covers of women doing violent stuff. Here’s another installment of cover scans, one you can call either “Odd Stuff of the Golden Age” or “Tom: His Many Moods.” The covers here are all from comics that have sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. They’re big on the collectors market, and not because they involve famous characters or huge name artists. People want these comics just because the comics look so weird. 

The issues in question sold little when they came out, then spent decades in obscurity while fandom evolved and Carl Barks and the Legion of Superheroes and Little Lulu and so many others received well-deserved attention. Not until the early 1990s did anyone become aware that most of these comics had ever been around. That was when the visionary Ernst “Ernie” Gerber published The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books, a collection of 21,000 (or so) color photographs of comic book covers. By his account, he had spent almost $900,000 on tracking down various comic book collections, photographing their covers, and producing the book. Let me note that his wife of the time, Mary, has a joint byline with him and that Comics: Between the Panels says she “helped sort the slides and cull the 22,000 cover photographs that made Gerber’s final cut.” (The 22,000 figure conflicts with the number given on the Photo-Journal‘s cover, at least as the cover is reproduced in Between the Panels. As you may have guessed, all the information in this post is from Panels’ entry on the Photo-Journal. If you have never read Panels, and if you like U.S. mainstream comics, you should check it out. It’s a great read and full of information.)
Readers of the Photo-Journal saw photos of Action 1 and  Haunt of Fear 12 and so on, but they also saw thousands of covers of comic books they had never heard of. A few of these comics were so strange, so extreme, so absurd that collectors everywhere decided to buy them. The collectors did so, then spent a decade and a half selling the comics and buying them again until prices for the books climbed to more or less daffy levels. 
Okay, now a few covers; just three this time out, because I want to keep these posts going a long time. No, I don’t know why the right edges are shaved off here; they’re fine when I preview the post, and you can imagine how happy I am about this little snag. (UPDATE:  Noah set me straight. You can change the html so that the pictures’ width fits the blog’s column width.)
I made a joke up top about my many moods, so the first cover is called “Me and My Life”:
Photobucket
That’s Criminals on the Run, published by Curtis in 1947. The cover is drawn by L. B. Cole, who churned out countless crime, adventure, sci-fi, and horror covers. Just about everything really. Very often he did beautiful work; very often he was absurd, especially when people got involved in his scenes. A fish in the face. 
I was writing about my hangover and attendant frustrations. So here’s Mr. Mystery 11, published by Aragon in 1953, cover by Bernard Baily.
Photobucket
Finally, a tribute to my good humor of recent days:
Photobucket
That’s Atomic War! 1, published by Ace in 1952. Don’t know who drew the cover.

Gluey Tart: Restart

Posted on by

restart manga
Restart, by Shouko Hidaka
Digital Manga Publishing, 2008

“A drunken night of sex sparks the beginning of their relationship, but Tadeshi’s growing insecurity over the younger Aki’s meteoric rise to stardom gets in the way of love. Clearly, it’s not all glitz and glamour in the tumultuous world of modeling.” So sayeth the dust jacket.

I had a strange relationship with this book before I read it. I accidentally bought it twice (and Borders wouldn’t let me return the second copy, damn them to hell), and caught myself thinking about buying it four more times before I remembered. And that wouldn’t sound at all strange if you a) knew me and b) saw my four terrifying, teetering “to read” stacks. The point is, part of my brain clearly wanted to read this book.

It was right, of course. I’m confused about many things, but the kind of yaoi I like is not one of them. I’m torn here, by the way. Should I launch into a summary? Or tackle the cliché question? The former, I think.

restart manga

The major point of Restart is willowy, elegant-looking boys with long, messy hair. Or at least long, messy bangs.
I always award bonus points if one of the main characters has that little quasi-updo thing going, too.
I would say that’s just me, but it can’t be. It has to be a bit of a fetish for other yaoi fans, too; it occurs too often not to be. Because Japanese men are more fashion-forward and groomed than American men, but really, the incidence of the little half-ponytail in the wild is not extensive.

restart manga

The semi-random means of bringing the willowy, elegant-looking boys together is a misunderstanding that almost destroys their nascent relationship (let’s spin the wheel – oh, one of my favorites! They get drunk, have sex, one of them doesn’t remember it the next day, and they pine for each other until the mistake is cleared up), but finally resolves into a new connection, followed by meaningful makeup sex. There are longing looks across the room. There are resentful musings. There are hurt feelings and confusion. Followed by meaningful makeup sex.

restart manga

The sex can occur on- or off-screen; surprisingly, I don’t much care which. It’s always tricky, approaching the initial sex scene in a book by a mangaka you haven’t read before. Everything can be fine up to that, but there are just a lot of deal-breakers – I can be in love, love, love with everything about the story, and then, oh, God, the sound effects say “slurp.” You know. And then there’s how the genitals are, er, handled. They can’t show them in Japan (although some mangakas do anyway, always a pleasant change of pace), so there are conventions to let you know what’s being put where. There’s the ghost penis, where one of the characters obviously has his or his partner’s equipment in hand, but the hand is empty. Or there’s the partially rematerialized penis – think Star Trek, where everybody is kind of a shimmery cloud before they fully beam in. As far as where the penis is inserted, you often get a kind of cut-away; fingers are inserted into – nothing. And sometimes you just have to laugh. Laughing is enjoyable and, I understand, can help you live longer, but it isn’t always right for the big sex scene. Restart gets it right. There are a couple of sex scenes (actual, not implied), but it’s all about the romaaaaaaaaaance. Charged expressions, well-positioned hands (not a given), meaningful eye contact. And it starts in the bathtub, which just pleases me.

restart mange

TMI? Well, that’s the thing, when you’re talking about porn. Yaoi isn’t just about sex, but it is about sex. So while literary criticism is relevant, it isn’t really as relevant as whether it, you know, works. If it’s hot. That’s a combination of plot, story-telling, the quality of the art, and if it hits your favorite kinks – which can be the most important part. And that brings us back to cliché.

Those of you who are familiar with yaoi will recognize the getting drunk and having sex that is immediately followed by a misunderstand aspect of Restart whether you’ve read it or not. (I’m talking about the main story here, which comprises five chapters; there are two others, both enjoyable, but filler) It is not an original plot device. It is, in fact, a well-worn plot device – so much so that I actually think of it as a subgenre rather than a cliché. I don’t have a problem with that because the drawing is lovely, the story is sweet, and, most important, the romance works for me, and the sex works for me. That’s why I read yaoi; I want romantic porn. If the book succeeds on that level, it succeeds.

Yoshihiro Tatsumi Looks as Sharp as his Comics, in Non-Moldy Reissues

Posted on by

Judging from the pictures from TCAF. This post departs from my courtly ways; apologies in advance.

So more than once I read the many words Brandon from Are You a Serious Comic Book Reader? dropped about the graphic design of Drawn & Quarterly’s Tatsumi reissues. I guess he’s having an off day: gems like “the act of reissuing is a mix of hubris, fan boy exctiement [sic] gone wrong in the best and worst way, and opportunism” and “imperialist takeover” stand in for his not liking the design. Which is “twee and minimalist,” aimed at the “New York Times crowd” and the bad people who enjoy the Shins, Wes Anderson movies, and Neutral Milk Hotel. Those dreaded hipsters lurk in his argument, recalling someone’s glib quip that Tatsumi was hipster manga, when it’s really manga for smoke-cured old men.

Executive summary: Huh?

Anyway, let’s enjoy the graphic design in the Japanese versions of Tatsumi’s work. Maybe they’re twee and minimalist, aimed at those horrible cityfolk who read the Yomiuri, watch Le Pavillion Salamadre, and wear scarves. In the spirit of Tom’s fine series of Golden Age covers.

For context, here’s A Drifting Life, colonized by Tomine and the Canadians:


Here’s the same, pure as the finest vending machine sake:

Here, Seirinkogeisha’s recent versions of Tatsumi’s short stories:
And here’s a period cover to an ancient series of his I’ve never read and know nothing about save that it’s from around ’78:

Looks awful. Money makes the man.

And an old collection:
“The Crowd with the Blues,” more or less, from Napoleon Books. I don’t have a date, but it’s at least 20 years old judging from the design. The only word I can really make out on the blue wrapper is “sex.”

Finally, we’ve got Chip Kidd, who’s really damn good. They’ve got Tadanori Yokoo, who’s a legend. Here he drags Shonen Magazine from the gutter to the gallery:

Click to see it bigger. These are from the late 60s, early 70s. The cover on the left is from Tomorrow’s Joe, and its design doesn’t strike me as all that different than Tomine’s version of Tatsumi’s work. More garish, still using the source art as springboard for graphic strategies not inherent to cartooning. See also his baseball calligraphy cover, which stunned readers and artists when it hit.

As always, I hope I made some points.

Nicked from all over. Here’s some links:

Postscript: Tatsumi did up the great saint of Shingon Buddhism with Sachiya Hiro? Who knew?

Best explanation I’ve ever heard

Posted on by

“At the meeting I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’  I made the mistake of referring to Sen. Schumer as ‘that Jew’ and I should not have put it that way as this took away from what I was trying to say.” 


That’s state Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Ark, telling an Arkansas political blog (the Tolbert Report) why it was that he referred to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as “that Jew.” Apparently, when discussing adherence to your fine values, it is highly relevant to note that a person who disagrees with you is Jewish.

I like it that Sen. Hendren speaks frankly of the downside to slurring someone’s religion: it creates inconvenience for the person who does the slurring.

(Via Yglesias this time, not Sullivan!)

More on Mark Waid’s Wonder Woman

Posted on by

I already posted this picture once before:

Photobucket

But I thought I’d talk about it a little more. As I said, it’s Mark Waid and Ty Templeton, and it’s part of a seriesof crazed Silver Age Tribute Elseworlds covers they did. You should look at them all if you haven’t already; the one with Gorilla Grodd as Christopher Columbus is amazing, as is the one with Batman as the Biblical Adam worried that Eve will discover his double identity.

This cover is great too though. I’ve spent a fair bit of time here talking about the ways in which Wonder Woman is an impossible character to get right. Even doing Wonder Woman satire often falls flat…and when it works, as in Darwyn Cooke’s WW meets Playboy goof, it’s rarely anywhere near as funny as the Marston/Peter original series.

This is an exception though; that image is truly cracked. Part of its success, I think, is that it plugs into, and scrambles, some of the weird gender dynamics that inspired Marston in the first place. Basically, that cover is extremely, bizarrely Freudian. Luthor goes into the past to despoil the matriarchal paradise, “romancing” not only Hippolyta, but WW as well, who remakes herself in his image. Having her shave herself bald is just an awesomely ridiculous thing to do; on the one hand, it’s the ultimate negation of the character (who is more or less defined by her connection to the beauty of Aphrodite;) on the other hand, though, it makes her really butch, which is something that was definitely implicit (and often explicit) in the early WW stories. There’s also more than a tinge of Marston’s control fetish here: Big Daddy Luthor can make Wonder Woman do “whatever her father commands!” And the text up top is funnier if you know Steve Trevor at all…that incompetent is supposed to replace the uber-patriarch? Yeah, I can picture that scene.

It’s true that Ty Templeton is no Harry Peter…but the art is serviceable, and its stiffness (reminiscent of Ross Andru?) is charming in context. And what a completely insane idea. I’ve called Mark Waid a hack in the past, but this cover and the others in this series, are really brilliant. I almost wish he’d write one of these stories out…or do some other humor tale. Has he ever written an entire book that looks anything like this? Because I would buy it in a second.

Unusual

Posted on by

As I understand it, a hangover is supposed to last a day at most. Mine has started its third day, and I have learned why I do not normally drink hard alcohol.  Like Bertie Wooster, I’m evolving various metaphors to express the hangover experience. A favorite: my skull is made out of crepe paper; the contents have turned to egg yolk; if I move my jaw while speaking, some of the yolk may escape thru the vent just over my ear.

My condition contributed to an unpleasant moment at the Second Cup. The place is lovely in the morning, lovely and quiet. But if one person speaks loudly, their voice is inescapable. This morning the person who spoke loudly was one of the girls on the cafe’s staff.  Normally she is uncommunicative and busy cleaning. But lately she’s changed gears, and it turns out she has a voice like an auto collision with words set to it. To try another line, if a car alarm could say, “I mean, what is that?” it would sound just like this girl. 
After a couple of hours, I shuffled over, excused myself, and intruded in her conversation. I tried the diplomatic approach: “Because of the acoustics here, your voice kind of bounces around.” Her, after a moment’s thought: “Okay! I’ll turn up the music.” To be fair, I don’t think she was being stupid, just rude in a quick-witted way. I shuffled off again, and from that moment she was quiet. Not that a lot of moments were left, since her shift was almost over. I had waited a long while, subjectively the equivalent of years.
Now I’m at a different Second Cup, more crowded and in some ways noisier, but the noise is ambient instead of being focused, and it doesn’t talk, just grinds coffee. But the yolk is still sloshing about, and I miss my old Second Cup. I’m going to try the old place again and if necessary ask one of the other kids on staff to act as go-between so that a settlement can be reached with the noisy girl. Because, make no mistake, the kids are still great. 
UPDATE:   The hangover symptoms I describe are “the worst,” according to the boy who was sweeping the hallway outside the bathroom at my fallback 2nd Cup. He confirmed that a hangover lasting three days is highly unusual, not to say unheard of, and suggested that I might be suffering an allergic reaction to hard alcohol. The allergy would explain a lot, including my uncharacteristic good sense in staying away from hard alcohol for most of my life.
UPDATE  2:  10:30 pm, Montreal time. Coming here to the Cafe Depot, I found Ganesh and Pariabas, two young fellows in my building, hanging out on the front steps with Kevin, another young fellow but not normally one of their buddies. Ten minutes of discussion on the origins of my hangover, why I had drunk so much, funny things said by various parties while drunk, what I should do to avoid hangovers (water), and how Pari had drunk half a bottle of scotch for three weeks without any side-effects because it was during a leisurely vacation somewhere and he had been in a good frame of mind.  I move on with the gratifying sense of having been the center of attention. Maybe that’s why my hangover sticks around; on the other hand, sitting down here I found that I lowered myself into place like an old man with vertebrae that might pop their strings and scatter on the floor; so the effects are real and they linger.
A cheerful note: my favorite barista is behind the counter; usually she works the day shift. She’s a pretty, dark-eyed, good-natured girl with a boyfriend who loves Watchmen. She likes it too, but the book is really his obsession, not hers; I guess that’s suitable, seeing as how he’s the guy. They read it because of the movie, which they both liked a lot. I take this as a testament to Alan Moore: in however distorted a form, his story breaks thru to a new audience. I was going to say “gets thru to a new generation,” but Roger Ebert and (God, again) Andrew Sullivan both liked the movie too.
UPDATE 3:  Now into day four. All that’s left is an ache over my right eyebrow, and I’m starting to think that’s because of the overstuffed chair I use at my fallback 2nd Cup. 
UPDATE 4:  My hangover was officially gone as of yesterday morning, when a Cafe Depot barista (not my favorite) remarked that I was singing. A four-day hangover — not bad!