Ditko's Monsters - Gorgo!

This YOe Books collection brings together all of the Joe Gill and Steve Ditko stories about the giant monster Gorgo. Gorgo stories were produced by other talents in the Charlton stable, but it's only the Ditko material which is on display here (for the most part).

Likewise, both monsters are getting the collected treatment from YOe Books and IDW Publishing. The Konga collection, which is even larger  that the pretty hefty Gorgo book, is due to arrive in a few months.  The stories by the ever-ready scripter Joe Gill are solid and as illustrated by Steve Ditko, give the reader a incredible but entertaining thrill ride as the monster Gorgo, almost presented as a stranger-in-a-strange-land, deals with the wide world.

It's a lot of Gorgo to read, and truth told not all of the stories are gems. But they are all a hoot, an echo from a time when comics were such plain unabashed fun, that stuff like this could be published without apology or qualm.

All of the Ditko Gorgo stories are here, as well as all the covers he produced for the series. Also showcased is some really great info on the classic movie and how the comics were an integral part of the marketing of the flick. Great Gorgo lore for any fan of the movie indeed.

Here's a cover gallery. Enjoy! The debut cover is by Dick Giordano if I'm any judge.

This final cover is by Bill Montes and Ernie Bache. These artists did a gaggle of Gorgo stories themselves and they did the cover here for an issue featuring Steve Ditko material inside. (It might be heresy in a post celebrating the great Ditko's art, but I actually prefer the Montes and Bache version to Ditko's.  Sadly, I doubt we ever see a collection of those stories, but there's always hope.)

Monsters are at their most fantastic when they are giant. More Charlton giant monster goodness tomorrow. 

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The Spirit In Pulp Friction!

The Rocketeer and The Spirit - Pulp Friction will have to be put into the missed opportunity section. Mark Waid creates a nifty story featuring the still largely experimental technology of television to bring together the sunny flying hero from California and the shadowy hard-bitten hero from Central City. The Spirit was the creation of Will Eisner arguably the finest comic book creator of all time, while the Rocketeer was the creation of Dave Stevens, one of the finest comic artists of his or any generation. 
Their milieus could not be more different. 

What brings them together is a murder, the murder of an alderman from Central City whose body turns up on the beaches of California in an impossible timeframe. Betty found the body and so becomes embroiled in this tale of corporate greed and government corruption. Cliff Secord is trying his best to keep her safe despite the fact she often seems more concerned with her career and with the Spirit's muscles. She meets the latter when he, Commissioner Dolan and his daughter Ellen fly to California to identify the body. The crime boss, a powerful businessman named Trask is in partnership with the Spirit's old nemesis the Octopus. Together they want to get control of the new technology of television with its potential for reaching the masses. It seems this technology has other uses as well which proves of interest to foreign powers. 

Paul Smith is the artist of the first installment and it's outstanding, offering up a nigh believable story which commands the reader's attention. Smith has always had an attractive style which is well suited to drawing dames such as Betty. Unfortunately for whatever reason Smith only draws the first issue and is replaced by Loston Wallace on the second. Wallace is an old internet colleague and once did some work for an early Yahoo group I managed for a time. I like his work immensely, but it seems a bit less dynamic here than I'd have hoped. The third and fourth issues are drawn by Jay Bone, a dandy artist, but one with a style much different than what had come before. There is nothing wrong with any single episode on its own, but the clash of styles does not do the storytelling any favors. It's a pity Smith couldn't have done all four issues. 

Below are the covers. The first and second issues are by the late Darwyn Cooke. Jay Bone does a bang- up job on the final two. 

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The Artisan Spirit!

Will Eisner is the most important figure in the history of comic books. That's a bold claim, but let me explain. Eisner was one of the earliest creators of new content for the burgeoning field of comic books, the weaker sister of the noble comic strip. After a brief tenure in comic strips, he and Jerry Iger formed a partnership to supply comic material for the sundry publishers who rose up after the hit Superman made a new industry viable. Leading other great talents he helped contribute to comics such as Sheena of the Jungle, The Flame, Doll Man, and Blackhawk among others. Eventually he left to set up his own shop called logically enough Eisner Studio and out of that came The Spirit. The Spirit was a comic book produced for inclusion in newspapers which had seen the potential for such things to raise circulation. The singular thing about the Spirit is that Eisner maintained his rights over the character which proved critical over the next many decades. The comic was hugely successful and ran for a until the early 50's during which time Eisner had created a range of different kinds of stories which deviated greatly from mere crime yarns. 

Will Eisner proved comic books could be more than just disposable junk. He then when to work for the military where he used comics to teach soldiers about their equipment in P.S. Magazine, and left his most famous creation behind, but people remembered. There were revivals in the 60's and 70's and beyond. Eisner began to create longer form stories which were grounded in stark reality and later still adapted novels and fairy tales. He wrote at least two books about creating comics. Eventually DC acquired the rights and hold them today. Will Eisner was there at the beginning, the revival, and was a major influence on many creators both in the mainstream and underground. His stories are exceedingly well crafted and touch on themes which still resonate today. No single talent was as good as long as Will Eisner. Even so a mighty talent as Jack Kirby bends the knee to Eisner who combined great storytelling and longevity with a sharp business acumen that made for a successful working model for comics. 

IDW's Artisan Edition of The Spirit stories is wonderful way to get an intimate look at Eisner's work on his greatest and most enduring creation when he was at the peak of his artistic powers. Below are the splash pages of the particular "Spirit Sections" which are included in this tome in order, though of course they are in glorious black and tan. It's an economical version of the Artist's Editon produced some years ago and much more readable. 

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The Collected John Law!

The folks at Hard Case Crime have given us a real treat in The Collected Will Eisner's John Law. All of the John Law material is now easily available between two handsome covers. This is material created by Will Eisner and his team back in the 1940's when he was briefly considering starting his own line-up of comics for the newsstands as well as more modern material fashioned by Australian artist Gary Chaloner which takes many of Eisner's noir fragments and cements them into a fascinating and quite spooky whole. 

When the project failed to come together, Eisner took the elements of the stories and refashioned into stories for The Spirit Section. Four Spirit stories developed from this material, including the seminal two-part Sand Saref tale. 

I first became aware of these John Law Detective stories when Eclipse Comics was able to put together a one-shot comic at the same time that Kitchen Sink was rolling with The Spirit reprints. I was fascinated even then to get a glimpse behind the scenes of how comics can come together. 

Eisner was pitching all kinds of books and formats for these characters as well as others which never saw the light of day such as Melba Girl Detective. Originally Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy was to be the headliner. 

But then Eisner switched gears, and the beefy, one-eyed John Law took the lead. His similarity to The Spirit is evident, making the shift over to that series relatively simple to do. (I'll have more to say on these Spirit stories tomorrow.)

In the early 2000's Gary Chaloner was put into contact with Denis Kitchen by way of Kurt Busiek and it turned out that Chaloner was handed the keys to the Crossroads kingdom when he was given the okay by Eisner himself to continue the John Law adventures. 

Chaloner wisely chose to take the character and give him an even darker tone, adding a modern noir gloss to the already heady environment. Since the stories had in many ways become part of The Spirit mythos, Chaloner took steps to make the character distinctive replacing and adding to keep the structure if not all the details. 

In two collections (Dead Man Walking and Angels and Ashes, Devils and Dust) Chaloner added both Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic to the Crossroads universe. Crossroads is supposed to be a stand-in for Los Angeles just as Central City seems very much like New York City. This change alone gives the stories a fresh feel. The stories are hard-edged with the supernatural a regular aspect of the goings on. From the first collection we get "Meet John Law", "The Opal Skull" (originally a Spirit story intended for Dark Horse and later reconverted to same) and "Law, Luck and a Dead-Eye Mystic". And the remaining stories are "What Nubbin Knew..." and "The Half Dead Nubbin Butts", and a story I title "Law's Spook Squad". 

In a new story for the Hard Case Crime collection, we get a glimpse at what Chaloner had planned for Law, a team of detectives made up of Eisner alumni from all over. We get Harry Carey from the pages of WoW Magazine! from 1936, "Hammer" Donovan from Detective Picture Stories #4 from 1937, Melba Chase P.I. from the unpublished "Tab" The Weekly Comic from 1947 and Lieutenant Oren Grey from a couple of Spirit stories appearing in 1947 and 1948. It was a rich cast with plenty of villainy on display from the likes of corrupt cop Detective Reznick, gunman Ray Hades, and Law's boyhood friend, the gangster Enzo "The Angel" D'Angelo. 

This collection is highly recommended, not only for just fans of Eisner or The Spirit, but for fans of good noir crime stories. 

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