A Tasty Spirit Jam!

Spirit Jam is a 1998 reprint of one of the more impressive artistic stunts of the Indy era. In the 30th issue of The Spirit Magazine from 1981, the folks at Kitchen Sink (spearheaded by in-house Eisner expert Cat Yronwode) arranged for a host of artists and writers to try their hand at a few pages of a single shared Spirit story. The story was kicked off and wrapped up by Will Eisner but in between were all manner of renditions of the 40's comic icon by some of the most potent names of the era.

Pete Poplaski penciled the wraparound cover. It's gorgeous and features the inking of the following talents: Peter Poplaski, Will Eisner, Milton Caniff, John Pound, Denis Kitchen, Richard Corben, and Leslie Carbaga.

Also included in the square-bound reprint was the four-page Cerebus Jam story by Eisner and Dave Sim. Eisner handled the Spirit figures and Sim most everything else.

And to close things off here are two wonderful renderings of the Spirit with some iconic heroes.

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The Foozle Day!

Steve Englehart was born on this date in 1947. Englehart dropped onto the comics landscape at Marvel and left a huge impression with his stories that developed elaborate back histories for some of Marvel's forgotten characters. he co-created Mantis in the Avengers and Coyote for the Epic line.  Englehart was not a writer to suffer too much editorial fussing about and if a story he "wrote" appeared that had been too altered for his tastes he used the pseudonym "John Harkness". Englehart's generosity when it came creation is revealed in tale of The Foozle. 

Here's one of those secret origin type tales that I find fascinating in the comics world. It seems that back in the day, Steve Englehart, something of an itinerant comic book writer had a falling out with DC about his remuneration on an already submitted story. He had it seems already written a DC Presents story starring Superman and featuring The Creeper as the guest star. Since he felt stiffed by the company, he refused at that time to do more work for them, so what to do with the completed script.

I'll let Steve tell the story himself.

(Steve Ditko)
"I had no plan - what was I going to do with DC-specific stories if I didn't sell them to DC? - but that very afternoon, Jan and Dean Mullaney bought them to start their new magazine line (for the price DC had promised).

So, Marshall Rogers, who was going to draw the Superman-Creeper story, sat down and riffed on it. He turned Superman into a little girl and the Creeper into the Foozle, and I rewrote dialogue as needed. Marshall later spun the Foozle into his own series, which he wrote himself, and since it was pretty much his creation, I renounced my rights to him...er, it..."

So The Foozle was born. He debuted in Eclipse Magazine in the story "The Slab". Here's a link to Steve's full account.

Later Konsbon the Foozle showed up in the debut issue of Eclipse Comics running for a few issues.

Later still there appeared two issues of Captain Quick and A Foozle from Eclipse.

For those of us who remember the Foozle, and his eventual companion Captain Quick, it was fun stuff, emerging from an exceedingly fertile time for comics. The Foozle didn't have all that many adventures at Eclipse, but he did make a big impression on my memory at least. I'm tickled to discover that he was inspired by Steve Ditko's wacky giggling superhero.

Thanks DC for always being there for us fans. We owe their corporate incompetence and short-sightedness more than we can imagine I'd suspect.

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