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| << June12, 2004 - [ComicBooknet E-Mag] CBEM 476.07 |
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------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/bGIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> CBEM 476 rolls on with Rich's Interviews . . . *** Scott Lobdel writer on Alpha Flight from Marvel Comics interviewed by Richard Vasseur. Richard: Where were you born and raised? Scott: Born and bred in the Upstate New York hamlet of Marlboro, New York. It was and remains a small town. Richard: How did you get into writing comics? Scott: Six years of rejection letters from Marvel and DC! (What was I thinking?! Couldn't I take a hint?!) One time it was so bad I got a rejection letter for a ROBIN story! I was like "Wha -- ?!" I went back in my files to discover I had sent a Robin story TWO YEARS earlier! I had forgotten I had even written it! (Imagine -- it is not bad enough I got rejected! I had to get a note two years later, as if to say "Just wanted you to be aware -- we still hate you!" LOL! Not TOO humbling, eh?) Pretty much I just stuck with it... often taking an entire day to get on the train, go to Manhattan, meet the editor or assistant editor in the lobby to hand him or her a single page treatment, and then get back on the two train ride home. Man, I really was crazy. Who would do something like that? Rejection after rejection after rejection? Richard: Can you tell us something about the future of Alpha Flight? What can we expect? Scott: I hate to fall back on the cliche' of "expect the unexpected...!" but I have to tell you, in all honesty, I just turned in the script to ALPHA FLIGHT #12, and it is hands down the most outrageous plot twist I A] have ever attempted and B] ever seen in a comic book! I categorically can not believe they allowed me to do it. And it isn't there for SHOCK VALUE (it isn't that kind of SHOCK) it is there because I really miss the days of comic books that GENUINELY surprise us. There are only so many times that Beloved Character can go to his closet and Beloved Returning Supervillain leaps out of a closet and attacks! It has gotten to the point where my eyes will bleed if I read one more "This is my kewl take on established continuity..." I just can't believe that anyone really cares what "New 'Hot' Writer has to say about 'Their' version of Blah Blah Man". Just shut up and entertain me! Richard: What is the main difference in team dynamics of the newest Alpha Flight incarnation and the original one? Scott: We'll have to find out. I'm not being glib, but these characters are much too young to really get a handle on exactly how they are going to get along. They will reveal themselves to each other, then to me, then to the audience, over time. An example of this is issue 9, with a surprise marriage proposal that I didn't see coming. Certainly as certain characters shuffle off their moral coil, they characters left behind will react different as a result. I can say this: That the Original Team had the advantage of everyone WANTING to be on the team (with a few exceptions: NORTHSTAR claiming it was just to keep an eye on his sister. MAC who was really expecting WOLVERINE to lead the team...) whereas this team was pulled together pretty much against its will, only to discover that they are pretty good at what they do. Raw, certainly, but willing to try to continue to work together for the greater good. Richard: Does writing Alpha Flight differ much from writing X-Men besides the different characters? Scott: ALPHA FLIGHT feels about a 100,000 % more virginal to me. Like Canada itself, there is just so much more unblemished land and stories to explore. When I wrote the X-MEN, I tried again and again to get rid of the MORLOCKS and GENESHA (the land of the mutant maids?!) because I thought the team worked best when the number of mutants in the world could be counted in the hundreds. It felt unique. Now we have a mutantverse where the UPS guy is likely to have three arms and an eye in the center of his back. Mutants bands? Mutant ghettos? Mutant radio talk show hosts...? Most everything that needs to be covered in the X-verse has already been covered. I am eager to examine the AF-verse. If anything, I want it to feel more like the first fifty issues of the original FANTASTIC FOUR where they were constantly exploring brave new worlds and civilizations of heroes and villains. Richard: What are the differences between working for Dark Horse and Marvel? Scott: I used to have real relationships with real people during my "heyday" at MARVEL. Now I'm pretty much an e-mail that appears on people's computer screens. Hmmm. Richard: Thank you Scott it was a pleasure talking with you. _____________________________________________________________________ _ --------------------------------------------------------------------- - [6] My Life With Comic Books Paul Howley pmca@together.net [ My name is Paul Howley, owner of the Eisner Award winning pop culture collector's store known as "That's Entertainment" in Worcester, Massachusetts. Some people have called me the "luckiest man in the comic book business". My store has been around for over twenty three years and it's been a long and interesting combination of events and people that has brought my store to its current place. It is not my intent to boast or brag about my store or my life . . . I just want to tell you my story. See more about the store online at http://www.thatse.com ] Cast of Characters: Paul: age 37 Mal: my wife Brian: a customer, friend, and artist MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 82 While my friend Brian and I were working on creating a new project of a set of trading cards, I was contacted by a real estate agent who was trying to get me to buy a piece of commercial property so I could expand my comic book and collectible store in Worcester, Massachusetts. Real estate prices had fallen a little bit during the recession of the early 1990's but the asking prices of commercial property still seemed too high to me. The realtor took me to a building that was quite interesting. It was an old three-story brick building that was used as a manufacturing facility. Each floor had about 2000 square feet of floor space. The first floor was already set up as a potential retail area and it was in nice condition. The upper two floors were unusable for retail without a lot of renovation because they had very old, oil soaked, beat-up floors. I was intrigued with this building though, because there was a nice parking lot, a loading dock, an elevator, and a nice office already constructed on the second floor. Almost all of the windows (and there were over seventy windows!) would need to be replaced. This would cost thousands of dollars so I considered this to be a big "negative." There were some great "positives" though. This building was located on the very same major road as my current store but it was in a great area that would be much safer for my customers. The store I was using at that time was in a tough section of the city and I was eager to move out of there. This building was also located directly across the street from a very prosperous bookstore called "The Tatnuck Bookseller" and I knew they'd attract some of the same type of customers to the area that may be exposed to my store for the first time. The owner of this building was asking $350,000 for it and I offered them $275,000. I thought that this would be a fair offer because of the amount of expensive renovations that would have to be done to make this building usable for me. Thankfully, they declined my offer. The real estate agent called me a week or so later to tell me about another building. This one, a brick building built in the 1940's and used as a car dealership for most of its history, was located on Park Avenue, the third busiest street in Worcester. It had almost 20,000 square feet of space including a small second level. The first level was divided exactly in half by a cement-block wall to create two almost identical commercial spaces. A small parking area would hold nearly ten cars. My current store had on-street parking for two cars so this new location would be a small improvement. The building was being used as a "light manufacturing" facility for disabled people to assemble things for outside companies and state projects. This privately owned business was very successful until the governor of Massachusetts cut the funding for many state-sponsored programs in order to fix the huge deficit left by the former governor, Michael Dukakis. At one time, an interested buyer had approached the owner of this building, and they were offered $750,000 for the building. The owner didn't want to sell it at the time because they were making a good profit using the building. They certainly didn't foresee the huge state cuts coming. Once it did happen, the owners went back and offered the building to the potential buyer but he had already bought another property. They decided to put it on the market for $700,000. This property had been on the market for a couple of months by the time my real estate agent told me about it and they had only received one very low offer. I was excited by the possibilities of this large space but I thought I'd never be able to fill it all up with merchandise. I was currently using about 2000 square feet for retail space and I did need more, but this was huge! I wanted this building but since I wasn't in a desperate position I made a pretty low offer of $200,000. To my surprise, the seller accepted it. I didn't have much cash in the bank at that time so I needed to get a mortgage to purchase this property. I was still making monthly payments on the apartment building next to my store in Worcester and most banks were reluctant to loan me more money because I was now losing money each month on it. Although all of the apartments were rented, the commercial restaurant was still way behind on their rent and I wasn't collecting enough to pay the mortgage and taxes each month. I finally found a bank that was willing to loan me the money to purchase this building but because it was a commercial loan, it would take almost six weeks for them to do a commercial appraisal of the property. I met with the manager of the bank in my hometown and she suggested that I could refinance my home to get the cash needed to buy this building. My home was valued at about $350,000 and I had paid off the loan many years earlier so the bank was willing to give me a loan against the value of it. They gave me the money within a week and I hired a civil engineer to inspect the building before I bought it. He found some minor problems but I bought it anyway. I hired my buddy, Jim Stoll, to quickly demolish many of the office partitions on the first floor of my new building. Jim, along with his wife Patty, worked long hours over a few weeks to clean this building out and they built a large, raised platform so we would be able to see the entire store from one spot. It was my intention to open in this new location in early 1992 Next chapter: The crazy, big move. _____________________________________________________________________ _ --------------------------------------------------------------------- - [7] LINES ON PAPER Bruce Canwell bruce.canwell@verizon.net [Freelance writer Bruce Canwell is a New England native who has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics. His essays have appeared in TOMORROW SF, THE CORTLAND REVIEW, COMIC BOOK WEEK, the PORTSMOUTH (NH) PRESS, and AMAZING HEROES. In the summer he is often found at Fenway Park; in the winter, he enjoys playing high-stakes poker against really dumb opponents.] Installment 26: On My Walls (Part 1 of 2) The second LINES ON PAPER Giveaway generated two responses. Correspondent # 1 listed THE SPIRIT as the favorite DC ARCHIVE to-date: "I've collected nearly every Spirit comic published since the 1960s; each one is wonderful in its own way. But the DC hardcover premium reprints of the Spirit are the best ever. With wonderful color on sumptuous paper and printed in gorgeous uniform bindings, this is the Spirit reprint I've always wanted. Now that the classic post-War stories are being reprinted, each volume is a real treat." In terms of which heretofore-uncollected DC material should get ARCHIVES treatment, Correspondent # 1 said, ".. the most important historical series not yet reprinted would have to be of a mainstream DC character who's front and center in the DCU but whose original series has seldom if ever been reprinted. [That] .. would be the MARTIAN MANHUNTER. I know I've seldom seen his stories reprinted, and J'onn has been a key member of the JLA in all its incarnations since at least the days of Justice League Detroit, 20 years ago.. All of the other original JLA members have had their early adventures reprinted, so his absence seems obvious. "I'd also love to see DC go with more smaller Archives like they did with TOR. It would be wonderful to see such titles as BAT LASH, SHADE THE CHANGING MAN or Ditko's BEWARE THE CREEPER, short-run classics, get the hardcover treatment." Correspondent # 2 voted for new ARCHIVES devoted to, ".. the ALL-STAR COMICS Comics revival of the '70s (and after its cancellation, its continuation in the pages of ADVENTURE COMICS) -- and the Earth-2 "Huntress" backups from WONDER WOMAN. In short, all that modern-day Earth-2 stuff. Shame so much of it had to disappear in the Crisis -" Neither respondent could help me with the Giveaway's 3rd question, so I still dunno whether DC has produced only the 3 volumes of FLASH ARCHIVES I've been able to find or the 4 volumes touted on the dustjackets of their recent releases. Correspondent # 1 gets a copy of Stinging Monkey Publications's KRAZY & IGNATZ: THE DAILIES (1918-1919); Correspondent # 2 receives a Kitchen Sink Press edition of Will Eisner's graphic novel THE DREAMER, plus Art Adams's 3-issue 1996 MONKEYMAN AND O'BRIEN miniseries from Dark Horse Comics. Thanks to both participants! Now, back to our usual fun 'n' games -- # Though I do not collect original artwork, a fair amount of it has come my way over the years and is now matted, framed, and mounted on my walls. Let me give you a room-by-room virtual tour. Starting in my office, the first thing one sees is -- The Thing, in a penciled-and-hand-colored head shot by Joe Sinnott. I met Joe in 2000, at the Great American show in White Plains, New York. What a pleasure to acquire an original from the man I view as "Mr. Fantastic Four!" At that show I also met the late, great John Buscema. My office features pages 6 and 8 of KULL THE CONQUEROR (Volume 2) # 6: the black- &-white originals are juxtaposed with the printed-in-color pages from the comic, all displayed in one jumbo piece measuring 27 inches wide and 31 inches tall. John B. and inker Klaus Janson depict King Kull and Councilor Tu in the palace before shifting scenes to a forest where Brule the Spear-Slayer and a generic Buscema Gal are about to be menaced by goblins. The writer of this issue was Alan Zelenetz, who had success in the mid-1980s, then vanished from the scene. What happened to Alan Zelenetz, I wonder . . .? My office window is flanked by two separate pages of original art. Left of the window is the splash from DAREDEVIL (Volume 1) # 177, the September 1977 issue. Klaus Janson again does the inks, this time over masterful Gil Kane pencils. This page was a gift from my friend Mike, who bought a number of this issue's originals directly from the artist himself while Gil was living in Connecticut during the 1980s. A decade later, Mike claimed I did him a number of good turns and insisted I take my choice of a page from his Kane collection as his way of saying thanks. He was surprised when I selected the splash over a page of panel-to-panel continuity, but the almost lyrical power of Kane's figurework is front and center here, and Janson displays a number of inking techniques that remain a delight, almost 30 years later. To the right of my window is the first of four Lee Weeks pages I own. I have known Lee for over two decades; the aforementioned Mike is a mutual friend. Mike and I visited Lee and his charming wife early in the 1990s and Lee gave each of us an original to commemorate the visit. I chose this page from DESTROYER # 4, full of Remo Williams and Master Chun hijinx. Next door, in the bedroom, resides another Weeks page, from one of his finest-looking projects: TARZAN VERSUS PREDATOR AT THE EARTH'S CORE. The ERB people loved Lee's rendering of the Ape Man: his power-packed pencils and inks on this story place him firmly in the company of such premiere Tarzan artists as Joe Kubert, John Buscema, and Tom Yeates. I own page 19 from issue # 3: Tarzan leads a war party into the lair of the reptilian Mahars and triggers combat with a thrown knife and the cry, "Bundolo! Kreegah Mahar!" As fine as the printed page looks, it pales before this stunning original. Directly across from Lee's Tarzan is page 20 from SUB-MARINER (Volume 1) # 21, penciled by Marie Severin and inked by Johnny Craig. Most of the page features underwater effects and a giant sea-monster; with a full-on shot of Namor in the last panel to close things out in grand style. The page was a 40th birthday gift from yet another friend; I later met both Marie and writer Roy Thomas at that Great American show; the original artwork was already matted and framed by then, but I made sure both of them autographed my copy of the comic. The next year, the same friend who gave me the SUB-MARINER page gave me a true oddity: a page of Syd Shores art from Marvel's short-lived 1970s RED WOLF series. Surrounded by a sandy brown matte set off by a deeper, clay-brown frame, the total effect of this page is really eye- catching. The one jarring aspect: all the flippin' WORDS on the page! Writer Gardner F. Fox crammed 189 words into 5 panels, and when he refers to Our Hero as "the Wolfhead Warrior" . . . perhaps you understand why Fox has never been one of my favorite comics writers. There is more to see, but time is up for this Installment. Let's finish the tour next time, shall we? _____________________________________________________________________ _ --------------------------------------------------------------------- - [8] Suspended Animation Michael Vance MiklVance2@worldnet.att.net [Michael Vance was first published in The Professor's Story Hour chapbook at the age of eleven and became a professional freelance writer in 1977. Vance has been published in dozens of regional magazines and as a syndicated columnist and cartoonist in over 500 newspapers. Among his credits are: "Forbidden Adventure: The History of the American Comics Group," articles for "Starlog," "Jack & Jill" & "Star Trek: The Next Generation". He briefly wrote the comic strip, "Alley Oop" and his own strip for five years called "Holiday Out," that was reprinted as a comic book. Vance also wrote comic book titles including "Straw Men," "Angel of Death," "The Adventures of Captain Nemo," and "Bloodtide". His work has appeared in several comic book anthologies, and he is listed in the "Who's Who of American Comic Books" and "Comic Book Superstars". With novelists Mel Odom and R.A. Jones, he co-wrote "Global Star". He worked in newspapers for twenty- two years as an editor, writer and advertising manager, creating three successful newspaper magazines. Michael Vance is currently communications director of a nonprofit agency, the Tulsa Boys' Home, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is a Christian] He escaped by the breadth of a hair. That's why Comics Legend Charles William Kahles called his comic strip Hairbreadth Harry. Our Hero's Hairbreath (misspelled) Escapes began publication in 1906 in the Philadelphia Press newspaper. Harry, who started his melodramatic adventures as a boy, matured into manhood and invested most of his time rescuing his beautiful but powerless girlfriend. His cliff-hanging episodes included a mustachioed villain and unusual attachments to railroad tracks and sawmill blades. Among the first comic strips produced, Hairbreadth Harry would become one of the most widely read paper dramas of its era and one of the least remembered "funnies" of today. That is an undeserved distinction. Before its descent into obscurity, Hairbreadth Harry was also featured on the silver screen in a series of short movies produced until the demise of silent films. The strip was also reprinted in issues of Famous Funnies, the first comic book ever published. Hairbreadth was drawn in a clean, abstract style with minimal background detail. Harry and villain Rudolph, who was always in top hat and tails, vied for the feminine hand (and minimalistic mind) of Belinda Blinks. Tucked not so subtly within was biting social commentary on the silliness of the day, and all was done with tongue firmly placed in cheek. For foreign readers, that means that Kahles was laughing at himself and with his audience at that most ridiculous subject, man. When C.W. Kahles died (1931), Hairbreadth was written and drawn by several cartoonists until its end in 1940. Kahles' comic book work included: Famous Funnies (1933--?, Eastern Color); A Carnival of Comics (1933, Eastern Color); and Funnies on Parade (1933, Eastern Color). The strip is also featured in The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. The work of C. W. Kahles is highly recommended. MV Some older comics are expensive or difficult to locate. Price guides or comics dealers help. Comic shops, conventions, mail order companies and trade journals are good sources. Prices vary; shop around. Questions? Comments? E-mail: MiklVance2@att.net. _____________________________________________________________________ _ --------------------------------------------------------------------- - [9] Silva Shado Reviews Sarah Haslett silva_shado@yahoo.com [Known as Silva Shado on many boards, Sarah is most frequently found at HeroRealm.com where she is a reviewer, moderator and frequent poster. She has read comics off and on her whole life, but really got into comics in 2000. In September of 2003, she started reviewing after realizing that there were good comics out there that no one was paying much attention to. Most recently, she has started writing a monthly column at MightyMiniCon.com. At the beginning of every month, "Under the Radar" will look at those comics that go unnoticed by the majority of comic book readers.] Review: Common Grounds #5 Writer: Troy Hickman Pencilers: Angel Medina and Dan Jurgens Publisher: Top Cow Released: May 26, 2004 Last issue was probably the pinnacle issue of Common Grounds. This issue, however, doesn't disappoint. The first story, "Where Monsters Dine!" is at first funny, then serious. Most people never really consider what happens to the "evil" monsters after they've been defeated. Here we get a look at how four monsters have lived and how they feel about the world around them. While each of them have a tail, er, tale to tell, the most moving moment is when they hear about today's monsters - the ones in human skin - and they vow to help make things better any way they can. The second story, "Love Life," is about a young man who is saved by the Eternal Flame. The young man was sitting up one a rooftop contemplating his ruined life and his ex-fiancee. He accidentally falls and the Eternal Flame catches him. Then he takes the young man into a Common Grounds to have a chat about life and love. I loved all the comic book references in this story, from meeting the girl of his dreams at comic convention to a super heroine helping Tokyo with the giant lizard problems. While I really enjoyed Eternal Flames background, he's the human Prometheus gave fire to which made him immortal, I didn't care much for his attitude. While I understand the message that there is no one right person for you, that each relationship is special and should be cherished, he was just a bit too arrogant for me. But I guess if you've lived as long as he has, you'd let things go pretty easily or else you'd be bitter beyond belief. Overall, a good issue, not to be missed. But then I don't think anyone should miss any of the Common Grounds issues. They've all been very good, very solid, with a unique take on super heroes. If you haven't checked out an issue, you really should. Pick up any. If you can't find one, wait till next issue. It'll be the last issue, though I keep hoping for an announcement that it will continue. I'm sure Troy Hickman has lots of good stories to tell and I hope they give him some room to do so. Review: Soulfire #0 Writers: Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner Artists: Michael Turner and Peter Steigerwald Publisher: Aspen Comics Released: May 26, 2004 As far as issue zeros go, I've seen a lot better. Turner's art is beautiful, I'll give you that. He has really creative ideas and concepts. I just have yet to see the two put together. While this does feature a 12 page story entitled "The Day the Magic Died," it is a very thin story laid out over two-page splashes. It's basically about how wonderful the world was when there was magic. Then this guy Rainier wants power and leads an army of dragons. There's a big fight (beautifully drawn, I admit) and in the aftermath, magic dies. But there are those who believe that magic didn't fully die and the age of wonder can be rekindled. After the story are 5 pages of concept and sketch art. Frankly, I'm tired of all these previews. I want to get to the story that looked, promised to be good. At this point though, it'd have to be real good to live up to all this "hype" and all of my frustrations. If you haven't seen anything about Soulfire yet, then this is the book for you. It'll bring you up-to-date really quickly. If you're a die- hard Turner fan, then this is the book for you. (Don't forget that there will probably be some variants and limited editions coming out that you'll have to get too.) If you already know about the Soulfire story, it's my opinion that you can live without this little back story. As a story, this isn't worth it. As art, it's almost worth it. It all depends on whether you like Turner's art. Whether 17 pages of Turner's art is worth $2.50 is something you'll have to decide. And to fuel the fire of my frustrations - Soulfire #1 coming out in August will have 3 variant covers, one of which will be a Previews exclusive. I've never been a fan of variants and I never will be. But if you happen to like them, save up your money and check out Previews to order your copy before it gets to ebay and sells for 10 times the original amount. _____________________________________________________________________ _ CBEM 476 continues . . . 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