Frankenstein Day!

Berni Wrightson was born on this date in 1948. Wrightson made his mark in the fanzines and later at DC where he brought a stylishness to his work on the ghost books. He went on to do outstanding for Warren Magazines as well. He's likely most famous for his breakthrough work on DC's Swamp Thing. His epic work though was his detailed illustration of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the most influential novels in history. It's impact on culture is enormous generating plays and adaptations almost from the very beginning in the 19th Century. In more modern times adapting the story to film has been almost a requisite. There are countless film adaptations of the story from Edison's early attempt in the teens to the iconic Universal version in 1931 which along with its sequels and imitators catapulted the story into myth. I've read the novel a half dozen times at least and taught it in school many times as well. It's a lush story of one man's startling obsession to conquer death by bringing the reassembled remains of many dead back to some sort of shambolic existence. It is the story of a man's obsession to conquer nature and the cancel even the thought of God from the equation of man's time on this planet and beyond. The novel is a cornerstone of both science fiction and horror and more besides. And it was the lifelong love of another artist, a chap named Berni Wrightson. 

As an artist who was often called on to illustrate horror tales, Wrightson did many takes on the Frankenstein myth such as "The Patchwork Man" in Swamp Thing and "The Muck Monster" for Eerie Magazine.  But it's here, illustrating the original Shelley narrative that we see how much he is ideal for the work. It was a true of passion, something he worked on between paying jobs for Marvel and DC and others. It took seven years to create the artwork which would serve to draw the reader into the world of Frankenstein more completely. As can be seen readily Berni lavished time and effort into each of the carefully rendered pages, each capturing a single moment from the novel. Reading the novel again for the first time in several years I was struck by the venal nature of Frankenstein, his absolute self-absorption is stunning but alas exceedingly modern. If anything Wrightson elevates him to a more heroic status with his idealized presentations. 

The art was first published alongside the text by Marvel in one of their oversized graphic novels. I missed out back then and had long wanted to behold this material, to hold it in my hand. Dark Horse at long last gave me that chance when they published the book again. 

The art itself is magnificent and as it turns out stunningly expensive. The original of the image above (seen in its entirety below) sold recently for a cool million dollars. 

Below are just a few of the magnificent images which Wrightson produced for his favorite work of literature. He comes close to making it mine too. 

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Nightmaster - A Sensational Sword And Sorcery Saga!

Three of my all-time favorite covers from DC are the three Showcase comics covers by Joe Kubert featuring Nightmaster. Aside from these tasty images, Kubert had nothing else to do with the character who is sometimes mentioned as the first sword and sorcery character in comics (not true but more on that tomorrow). 

(Jerry Grandenetti)

The story written by Denny O'Neil. in the debut issue was drawn by the painfully overlooked Jerry Grandenetti  and the last two issues of the singular trilogy are famously drawn by an up-and-coming Berni Wrightson, still a raw talent learning his craft on the job before our very eyes. You can read all three Nightmaster Showcase adventures here, here, and here.

(Berni Wrightson)

 For the record Denny O'Neil wrote all three issues. But I did find one a Mile High and it came yesterday along with some other treasures. This morning for the first time ever, I was able to read the Nightmaster saga all the way through. It held up pretty well. This is sometimes called the first Sword and Sorcery comic book. That's not true, but it does precede the wave of S&S prompted by success of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian. With Conan, Kull, Thongor, Gullivar, Dagar, Ironjaw, Wulf, and a wave of others hitting the stands in the Bronze Age and beyond, the Nightmaster was forgotten. 

(More Berni Wrightson)

The story is a bit more whimsical than I recollect, with a sense of irony clearly inspired by Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, who would soon enough get their own DC title. But it was neat heady blend of Tolkien and Burroughs and Leiber with a smidge of Howard tossed into the brew. Good stuff, not as full-bodied as most barbarian heroes, but neatly modern still after all these decades. 

I'd love to see these reprinted, but now that I have the originals at last, I don't really need that. 

Here's Nightmaster as rendered by Wrightson for a fanzine. The promised series featuring the character did not materialize. In fact after this three-part story, the character vanished for many years until surfacing in the pages of Animal Man and later Swamp Thing. Eventually he became part of DC's magical team Shadowpact and even rated a one-shot comic of his own which sported a new Wrightson cover.

But for the most part, Nightmaster is what he always was, a weird blend of superhero and sword and sorcery, a could'a been comic book character. But those are still some blockbuster Kubert covers.

This post is dedicated to the late Berni Wrightson. 

This Post is a Revised Dojo Classic. 

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The Complete Web Of Horror!

I was a bit too young to enjoy thoroughly the horror comic magazines of the early 70's. When Marvel pushed into the zone with Monsters Unleashed and Dracula Lives, I began to notice them. I'd bought a random issue of Eerie, but I never got them as a regular thing. So Web of Horror was totally off my charts in 1969 when it debuted. I've long been fascinated by the short-lived magazine, mostly because of the outstanding talent associated with. I like everyone else am a Berni Wrightson fan and guys of like Mike Kaluta and Frank Brunner always get my attention. I was less plugged into Jeff Jones, but, I liked all the work by him I encountered. He came into focus when The Studio was set up with Jones joining Kaluta, Wrightson and Barry Windsor-Smith in attempts to market portfolios and such. 

When Fantagraphics announced they were going to at long last publish a reprint of the series I was immensely pleased and pre-ordered a copy as soon as I was able to do so. Now I have it my clutches to help celebrate Halloween. 

Terry Bisson, Clark Dimond, and Dana Marie Andra all write essays explaining how Web of Horror came to be. His boss Robert Sproul, the guy behind Cracked magazine, was the guy with the deep pockets and so he was the guy Bisson and Dimond approached about a magazine in the Warren magazine vein. Bisson already worked for Sproul. Bission had connections to the young artists filling the pages of fanzines at the time. So, he corralled Wrightson, Kaluta, Reese, along with Frank Brunner, Wayne Howard, the painfully underrated Bruce Jones, and veterans such as Syd Shore and Otto Binder to fashion just such a magazine. 

With writers such as Nicola Cuti tapped to join in, these young turks set about making some tasty monster mags. I'm particularly impressed by Ralph Reese, who brings a hard edge to his fantasy yarns. Wrightson of course is tapping into that classic Ghastly and EC vein he is famous for and Kaluta offered up some dreamy fantasy images. Jeff Jones was brought in for some awesome covers. (He did issues one and two and Wrightson did issues three and the unfortunate four.) Wayne Howard is a fave and his story kicks off the first issue, but alas it's his only contribution. (His second was never published.) The Brothers Ussher by Dimond and artist Donald Norman is set up to be a continuing saga, but it has only one installment. 

The title only lasted three issues. And that's largely because some of its critical benefactors abandoned it. Brisson admits to a severe lack of professionalism when he just dropped out and headed west to find a commune. The artists tried to pick up the pieces, but those pieces were scattered here and yon. Frank Brunner rescued some already submitted artwork scheduled for the fourth issue which never came to be, mostly because Sproul himself ducked out to Florida.  Many of those abandoned but finished stories showed up in other black and white magazine, one I remember reading in a Marvel magazine. 

This handsome volume has all the published issues, the unpublished fourth issue and even a story eventually published in For Monsters Only. To be able to behold and enjoy all these lush stories by the likes of Wrightson and Kaluta and others is a grand treat, especially knowing that all too many of these creators have passed on. I do have one small bicker and that's that the bio for Nicola Cuti made no mention of his co-creation E-Man, my favorite superhero, but that's a small oversight. This volume is well and truly time capsule full of treasure from an era when I was a young man and sopping up comics at fantastic rate. This takes me back to when comics were fun and just a little scary as well. 

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Octobris!

This October has turned into celebrations of two great talents. The first is Rich Corben who started out his career in the underground of comix but soon migrated to the more respectable (if not necessarily better) comic books and comic magazines when his talent became obvious to one and all. Currently Dark Horse is reprinting his famous Den saga and this month I will examine the first four volumes as well as other vibrant Corben offerings. That includes some more traditional Corben horror set up as Halloween itself nears.

The second great talent is Fritz Leiber, a grandmaster of science fiction and the creator of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (that's them in the bottom right corner), the most urbane and sophisticated "heroes" in an extraordinarily weird world in the sword and sorcery genre. We'll take another long look at the complete bizarre saga.  I love this mismatched but exceedingly dynamic duo, and I have to make a journey to Nehwon every so often, just to remind myself of its splendid quality.  And I'd love to slip in a few other classic Leiber novels if I can get the chance. 

The Jim Henson Company is most famous for The Muppets of course, but I'd like to take a gander at two of the company's darker creations, the fantasy films The Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. Both of these films were made when movies were still mostly done on the stage or in camera. 

Warren Magazines created a batch of truly weird heroes. One of the most successful was Hunter and the sequel Hunter II. Jim Warren's outfit was responsible for getting some work from across the pond published for the first time in the United States, albeit with some changes. Hope to get around to some of those such as El Cid and Dax the Damned. Some of these have been collected by Dark Horse over the years. 

The Web of Horror was a short-lived magazine during the heyday of other horror mags like Creepy and Eerie. A lot of great young talent broke out in these pages. The magazine ran just three issues but four were prepared and finally Fantagraphics has reprinted them with lots of extras. I've been waiting all year to dive into this tome, and now is the month. 

That leaves time for a few other items to toss in, such as wrapping up my year-long look at Atlas-Seaboard. The company which burst onto the scene with so much promise and vigor gave up the ghost before the chill of the year had settled in. The last few comics and a look at their magazine line-up as well.

Also, I haven't forgotten about the great Neal Adams who I have been celebrating all year long. Look for some outstanding stuff from him a as this Halloween month shambles along. I've jammed in all sorts of surprises. 

Look for lots of creepy things, stuff with a sword and sorcery tilt. It's not so much traditional horror this year at the Dojo, but something a bit different. And who knows what else I'll find a way to fit in. It's a celebration of the weird and the unusual. And that's got Halloween written all over it. 

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Atlas-Seaboard Comics - July 1975!

This is the mother-of-all-months for Atlas-Seaboard. Lots of titles, lots of changes of direction, and sadly lots and lots of cancellations. This month marks the great collapse of the edifice that Martin and Chip Goodman built to spit in the face of their former success story, Marvel. Let's begin.

IRONJAW #4 gives us the "origin" of the barbarian, and this tale by Gary Friedrich and Pablo Marcos is a somewhat overdone saga of a young minstrel who is tortured and maimed by some jealous thugs. A witch tries to save him at the cost of her own immortality, and she is the one who first gives the young man his new jaw and his new name. Ironjaw was the flagship of the Atlas line, the only character to appear in five stories, but this issue is the last. We will never know the second part of Ironjaw's origin. The Atlas-Seaboard tragedy begins to unfold.

GRIM GHOST #3 gives us a Tony Isabella script with more Ernie Colon artwork. This story introduces Brimstone, a demon from Hell who wants to take over the operation. He gives powers to two thugs the Ghost encounters, and the battle is on. Brimstone offers G.G. a role in his revolution, but Dunsinane sees the flaw in Brimstone's plan and rejects him. Satan gives the Ghost some help in the form of Lady Braddock, the same woman who betrayed him in issue #1. It's a clever twist, and it gives the story some real depth. The battle with Brimstone has some neat twists, and I wonder if a young Todd McFarlane ever read this issue. I heard whispers of Spawn throughout. Alas this was the last issue, as despite an excellent Russ Heath cover and a logo change, sales must have not been there. It won't be the last cancellation of the month.

WULF the BARBARIAN #3 offers a change of talent and direction. A Steve Skeates written story with superb Leo Summers artwork, gives us Wulf and his new partner Rymstrydle saving some nobleman and his beautiful daughter from Kangroo-riding Rat-Men (shades of Kamandi) only to find themselves drawn into a struggle between a Master of an Industrial-Wonderland city-state and Wulf's arch-enemy. There is some great derring-do, before the battle is won, and by tale's end Wulf is again alone looking for revenge. There is also a map of Wulf's world in this issue. There will be one more issue.

BRUTE #3 gives us a change of talent and direction as Alan Weiss under Jack Abel inks takes the art chores. The new story by Gary Friedrich (who seems to have taken over all of Mike Fleisher's assignments at this point) puts the Brute in conflict again with the police before he eventually meets up with an android super-agent named Doomstalker. The story ends in a cliff-hanger with the Brute (now possessed of the limited ability to speak) having taken a terrible and fall, and the Doomstalker threatening all of mankind. Alas this is the last issue, and as far as I know the Doomstalker is still standing there.

MORLOCK 2001 AND THE MIDNIGHT MEN #3 (formerly known as simply Morlock 2001) is the saga that gets one of the sharpest twists in direction. Steve Ditko with some Berni Wrightson inks gives the book a new look, and the story involves a scientist horribly burned who leads a revolution against the same oppressive government that gave birth to Morlock. Morlock is taken underground where the newly dubbed "Midnight Man" seeks to enlist him in the war. The Thought Police attack and the battle rages. Morlock seems to fall, even to be dead as the story closes with the Midnight Man vowing to fight on. Issue #4 might have been retitled I suspect, but this series ends with this issue.

PLANET OF VAMPRIES #3 features delicious Russ Heath artwork under a very bland cover. The story by John Albano broadens the saga beyond the limits of the city and gets our hero into the wilderness. The death count is brutal in this issue as of our five astronauts (one was killed in the first issue) only two survive by the last page of this story and they are not together. The wives of both Chris and Craig meet tragic deaths, and a two-page ad by Larry Lieber suggests they will be together again battling more vampires. But this is the last issue.

THE SCORPION #3 tells of the death of Moro Frost, the Scorpion of the previous two issues. The immortal hero has moved on into the then-modern world of 1975 and has become a superhero. This Jim Craig drawn issue is typical superhero stuff with the Scorpion doing a Daredevil thing across NYC battling neo-Nazis who want to revive assorted Nazi villains from the Big One. The battle takes place under the Twin Trade Towers, then new, but it does give the comic a poignancy that it otherwise lacks. This is the last issue of this totally transformed comic. The panic in the Atlas editorial offices is becoming apparent with this particular comic.

WEIRD SUSPENSE #3 featuring THE TARANTULA offers another good dose of Boyette beauty, but the story is a rambling mess with a villain who ineptly used mind-over-matter to battle the star of the book. There are threats and danger, but the book lacks emotional direction. Rich Buckler offers both the cover and the splash page as there seemed to be some rewriting of the original story along the way. This is the last Tarantula story despite the fact #4 is advertised with cover art. Apparently, the next story would have explained the Tarantula was part of some alien invasion early in man's history. But we'll never know for sure.

TARGITT #3 gives us another episode of his war against crime, this time finding him against a ghastly character named Professor Death, neatly drawn by Howard Nostrand. There's nerve gas involved and Targitt's exposure seems to give him some powers of some sort, though this is vaguely explained. There is also something about his outfit giving him mechanical abilities of strength, but again it's vague. By the end of this story Targitt is renamed Man-Stalker and he's left his Magnums behind. Like the Scorpion another superhero is born. But like some many titles this is the last issue. Even the Buckler cover doesn't help things.

TALES OF EVIL #3 gives us the MAN-MONSTER, an Isabella-Buckler effort that has an abrasive Olympic swimmer overcome by weird sparkly stuff and change into a big old monster. Some reporters save him, take him to a hotel, where a costumed villain assaults him and sets fire to the hotel. The hero's father is an equally abrasive rich guy who happens to own the hotel and the Man-Monster is accused by story's end of torching it and his own dad is ordering the cops to shoot him. What happens next? We'll never know. BOG BEAST shows up for another (and final) turn with good art by Romero. Tales of Evil pulls the hat-trick and offers a werewolf for him to battle, making three werewolves in three issues of the abruptly cancelled series.

SAVAGE COMBAT TALES #3 gives us the last SGT.STRYKER'S DEATH SQUAD tale as Goodwin and McWilliams offer up another somewhat tepid story of the usual WWII mayhem. The team goes after Rommel, but miss, though through a complicated network of mistakes by all sides they think they've succeeded. I don't want to be there when they discover they screwed up. But we won't as this is the last issue. The second story is a pretty good tale of WWII with Jack Sparling artwork. It tells of a black vet and a white raw recruit who pull dangerous duty on a dangerous ridge and overcome both danger and racism, if only for the moment. It seems to be the start of a new series, but it's unclear. And sadly it's moot.

THE COUGAR #2 is another tale of Hollywood stuntmen battling supernatural menaces. With worthy Frank Springer artwork, this is a rather bland comic book. Our hero is Jeff Rand, is a Louisiana boy we discover and there's a werewolf in his past. That werewolf might just be his own brother and further seems to be on the loose killing folks all around our hero. We learn the Cougar identity is the result of a failed starring vehicle for our wannabe stuntman, but little is shown beyond that. This a wide-ranging story with little direction, but it does offer a climactic battle and the potential for a change of direction in issue #3 as by story's end the Cougar is paralyzed. We'll never find out, as this is the last issue. Sigh.

The lone debut of the month is...

BLAZING BATTLE TALES #1 starring SGT.HAWK. Hawk is the usual hard-nosed battle-weary hero and he goes after his mission in this effective one-shot story with the stereotypical Native American and Jewish soldiers at his side. I think their names are White Cloud and Goldberg, but any cliche names would have done. There's some decent Jack Sparling art over what claims to be Pat Broderick layouts, though I don't see it myself. Sparling certainly dominates. The second story features a fighter pilot with a six sense about attack targets and might be the beginning of a series, but its unimpressive despite typically good McWilliams artwork. John Severin puts in a two-page offering detailing the heroic efforts of a real soldier. This issue has it all it seems for the war comic fan. Atlas seemed to be clutching at straws by the time this one hit the stands, and even a rather nice Frank Thorne cover doesn't help much.

That's July from Atlas-Seaboard. With this wave of final issues, it's pretty much all over but the crying. Atlas will linger for a few more months, but there will be precious few more comic books from this company that promised so much, but sadly delivered so little in the final analysis. August awaits.

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