Super Stuff in the Bronze Age: 2021

Friday, December 31, 2021

Happy New Year To All Of Our Readers

Superman © DC Comics. With apologies to Action #81

Just a note to everyone who stopped by our blog this past year to thank you all for the encouraging comments and to wish you all the very best for 2022.

Thanks especially for the support my good pal Nigel Brown and I received in getting the word out regarding the publication of the autobiography of Britain's first full-time comic dealer, the late Alan Austin. The book helped to keep the Bronze Age of comics alive in the hearts of many, fifty years later.

So, please ring in the New Year with the beverage of your choice and please read comics responsibly!

Friday, December 24, 2021

“Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight”

With the festive season now upon us, I thought it might be appropriate to cast our collective minds back to the days of DC Bronze Age Christmases of yore, and revisit some of those classic covers and stories where our heroes venture out into snowy vistas and experience a non-denominational ephipany of sorts (or at least lock up a criminal dressed as Santa). Before researching this blog entry, I’d assumed that I’d find covers galore – too many to adequately cover in a few pages – but in fact, I found that there have been relatively few Christmas covers on non-humour DC comics across the years. The Bronze Age in fact sports more than its fair share of Christmas covers, but it must be said that some of the best Christmas stories were buried at the back of a comic, and had no corresponding Yuletide cover.

Going back to the earliest era, the first DC comic that I could find with a Christmas cover was in humour book More Fun Comics #16 from December 1936, but it wasn’t until December 1940 that a popular hero – Superman – first shared a cover with Santa in the special Superman’s Christmas Adventure #1. It was 3 more years before a superhero again featured on the cover with Santa, when Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern appeared on the cover of Comic Cavalcade #5 in December 1943. The following Christmas, Superman returned in Superman’s Christmas Adventure #2 (Dec 1944), and Batman & Robin appeared with Santa on the cover of Batman #27 along with the related story inside “A Christmas Peril”.

In the wartime era there followed a few other stories inside comics which featured our heroes (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Boy Commandos, Sandman, etc.) in a Christmas setting, but nothing that merited a Christmas cover. Of course, the lack of a Christmas cover may have been a sales tactic to keep the comic books on the stands longer, into the January period.

Generic Christmas covers appeared on mainstream DC hero comics throughout the late 1940s, but in the 1950s and well into the 1960s, Christmas covers exclusively graced the humour magazines (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Buzzy, Leave it to Binky, Fox and Crow, Sugar & Spike), and it was not until Christmas 1967, seventeen years after Superboy appeared in the snow on the cover of Adventure Comics #161 , that a mainstream superhero/hero DC comic featured a Christmas scene. That comic was Teen Titans #13, “The TT’s Swingin’ Christmas Carol” with a great cover and superb interior art by Nick Cardy, destined to be reprinted at least 7 times over the years. I love the colouring of the story, a good-hearted updating of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” complete with groovy hip dialog courtesy of scribe Bob Haney, who at age forty-one rolled-out every cool phrase he imagined the flower-power generation used.

Two years later, Christmas 1969 saw the publishing of the famed “Silent Night of The Batman” which received rave reviews, even though it was hidden as a back-up in Batman #219. This was a pivotal story, in that it directly addressed the spirit of Christmas, was “relevant” (a GI is shown returning from Vietnam), had no villain – only good will to all men. Mike Friedrich and Neal Adams have never been better.

Perhaps the Teen Titans Christmas cover in Dec 1967 was an experiment to see if a Christmas-themed drove additional sales on hero comics. It seems it had not been the case, and it was three years later (Dec 1970) when DC instituted an annual pattern of only one non-humour comic featuring a festive scene, with the Hot Wheels club featured in Hot Wheels #6 in “The Humbug Run”. Christmas 1971 was blessed with two Christmas covers – one from Tomahawk #138 “Hawk Son of Tomahawk: Christmas” and the other from Batman #239 “Silent Night, Deadly Night”, a tale of redemption and second chances for a hardened criminal on a snowy Christmas Eve. Batman says “God Bless” and spots the star in the night sky.

The back-up story was “The Loneliest Men in the World” from Batman #15 (Christmas 1942) in which our heroes spread good cheer and gifts to various men who have lonely jobs and often get overlooked. But it ends on a slightly jarring note when villain Dirk Dagner gets sent to prison for life and Bruce Wayne says that since Dirk is consumed by hatred and greed he should remain caged…no warm thoughts of Christian redemption from the Batman of 1942!

Christmas 1972 featured Batman again (Batman #247 “Merry Christmas”) , a 6-page hostage situation on a snowy Christmas Eve where Batman gets an unexpected helping hand in the form of a bright star in the sky. Denny O’Neil and Irv Novick share the creative honours on this one.

In 1973 it was the JLA’s turn with Justice League of America #110 (“The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus”) in a story penned by Len Wein and drawn by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano. The moral is that all of the JLA were willing to give their lives so that the rest of humanity might live. The cover of the comic was less than inspiring, though.

In Christmas 1974, DC decided to drop the idea of a new Christmas story in a mainstream hero book and instead issued Limited Collector’s Edition C-34 “Christmas with the Superheroes” collecting a number of Christmas stories published in previous years.

This collection approach had proved such a hit that DC again published a Limited Collector’s edition C-43 “Christmas with the Superheroes” which included the classic Neal Adams Batman story “The Silent Night of the Batman” amongst others. DC decided to also publish a brand-new Christmas story “Robin’s White (Very) Christmas” in Batman Family #4). It was a back-up written by Bob Rozakis, drawn by Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta. It is an amusing story of Dick Grayson helping his girlfriend and the Hudson University security chief deliver Christmas presents when thieves steal the sleigh and presents. After the case is solved, it looks like Dick will be snowed in and unable to meet up with Bruce, Alfred and Aunt Harriett for Christmas, but will get the chance for some one-on-one time with his girlfriend at Hudson U. But in the final panels his style is cramped when Bruce and team turn up as a surprise for Dick.

Christmas 1976 featured no Christmas covers on hero comics, and we had to wait until April 1978 when DC put out the “T’was the Night Before Christmas” in House of Mystery #257, well after the festive season.

Christmas 1978 featured three Christmas-themed mainstream comics – Batman #309 “Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas” from Len Wein, John Calnan & Frank McLaughlin (Blockbuster saves a suicidal young woman and sacrifices his life in the process), Brave & Bold #148 “The Night the Mob Stole Christmas” (Bob Haney, Joe Staton & Jim Aparo) (Bats teams with Plastic Man to foil a tobacco-smuggling ring and head down to Florida for the denouement. Back in Gotham City Lacey’s Dept store had been robbed of its goods and decorations ; Bats and Plas get the thugs to restore the store to its glory (Retail is just as important as faith) and Green Lantern #113 “That they May Fear No More” (a snowy Christmas Eve story by Denny O’Neil, Alex Saviuk and Frank Chiarmonte that finds GL and GA protecting a pregnamt woman and her famiy from thugs. The wife Marcy gives birth to a child – new hope – as Christmas Day rings in).

In Dec 1979, Frank Miller pencilled a new Batman story written by Denny O’Neil “Wanted: Santa Claus – Dead or Alive” published in DC Special #21. Again, the intervention of the light from the star gives Batman the edge he needs to rescue the department store Santa (a crook trying to go straight) and another tale of redemption on Christmas Eve comes to a close.

Following Miller’s popular tale, the era of the classic Christmas story appeared to have passed, even though various Christmas offerings have continued to appear over the years beyond the Bronze Age.

If the number of reprintings of DC Christmas stories are any gauge of popularity, then the stories of the Bronze age were the heyday of these tales. The stories were secular, but were also stories of hope, charity and love, with a nod towards the influence of a higher power of goodness to offer the chance of personal redemption. The star in the sky was a recurring motif in the tales written by Denny O’Neil.

Interestingly, despite the use of the term Christmas falling out of popular usage in the US media in deference to the more inclusive “Holidays” starting in the early 1980s, there has been little attempt to incorporate other religious festivals into stories. Out of the 246-plus original stories involving the Holidays in DC hero-comics since 1939, I counted only 14 instances of Hanukkah being referenced, and I found no stories built around any of the other religious festivals.

For those of you who like statistics, the most popular Christmas story (measured by the number of reprints) has been Batman “Christmas”, first published in Batman #9 (with no festive cover, but a classic cover nonetheless), having been reprinted at least 11 times. Filling out the top 3 spots are “The Silent Night of the Batman” (7-plus reprints) and “The TT’s Swingin’ Christmas Carol” (7-plus reprints).

Batman has appeared in more Christmas stories than any other hero, leading with 38 stories, followed by Superman at 15, with the Teen Titans at 9 and Flash at 8. Whether this preference for Batman as the bringer of Christmas cheer was down to the influence of Denny O’Neil, or simply that Batman is the most earth-bound hero, is open to conjecture.

Story titles across the years have been invariably plays on well-known Christmas phrases or repurposing of well know Carol titles, or nods to classic literature.

A good story appears perhaps once in a decade. To paraphrase Slade’s Christmas hit from 1973 “…..The Old Ones are the Best”.

“Merry Christmas Everybody!”

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Comedians in Comics

Well, sorry for the delay, going through the whole of November without a SuperStuff post, but am hoping to make it up this month.

Anyway, I thought I’d take a closer look at a comic that had always intrigued me, but never had. I’m not sure if Thorpe & Porter ever put it on our spinner racks in the UK. The comic in question is "Jerry Lewis meets Batman". (The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #97). I didn’t even know who Jerry Lewis was back in 1966. To me this seemed to be a bizarre edition of The Brave & The Bold.

The cover is credited to Bob Oskner, but appears to incorporate a swipe of Dick Sprang’s rendition of the Joker’s face, with perhaps also a swipe of Batman & Robin drawn by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella. It also seems to incorporate an homage of sorts to Goldfinger with the laser beam cutting through Jerry’s sun-bed.

Finally reading the comic today, it is a bit of harmless fun with Batman and Robin goofing around with Jerry Lewis. The renditions of the Dynamic Duo by Bob Oskner are an improvement over the work being ghosted by Sheldon Moldoff on the official Batman comic at the same time, but there is a lot of evidence that no-one from the Batman/Detective creative team had informed Oskner of elements of the "New Look" introduced two years earlier in 1964. The renditions of the Batmobile and Joker are right out of Dick Sprang's 1950s comics. Also of note is that there is no “Bob Kane” logo on the splash page, which illustrates a scene not to be found in the comic itself, with Jerry Lewis being tied to the clapper inside the bell in a tower.

The reason for this scene is an allusion to the Batman TV episode “The Bookworm Turns (April 20th 1966) which had appeared earlier that year, and incorporated Jerry Lewis in a cameo turn during a "Bat-Climb". (In the TV episode, it is Robin who is tied to the clapper in a clocktower bell. )

Reading this nonsense, it made me realize that there used to exist a whole sub-genre of comics, with a well-known comedian as the protagonist, that appears to be no longer with us.

But it got me thinking? How did comedians get into comics? And where are comics featuring comedians today?

So why did this trend start? As the old joke goes

"What is the secret of successful comedy?"
"T-T-T-timing!"

DC was late to pick up the potential for "comics in comics", and it was only the pressure from the anti-horror lobby that drove DC to look for other subject matter to divert criticism of their superhero line. In the early 1950s, with sales for superhero themed comics on the decline, National Periodical Publications began licensing the right to use celebrity images. Family favourite Bob Hope was tapped for a series which was to run for 109 issues from 1950 through 1968. Bob's wisecracking, yet nervous (but ultimately heroic) persona was deemed ideal for the medium. Shortly afterwards comics appeared featuring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, to be followed by comics of Phil Silvers and Jackie Gleason, amongst others. They enjoyed robust success throughout the 1950s.

The comedians featured were famous for slapstick and one-liners. All white men. They were of a generation that had embodied the strong tradition of comedians crossing over from vaudeville.

But as the 1960s got underway, public taste in comedians was changing, as was the age and taste of DC's comic book writers. Stand-up comedians were now the rage, with an edgier set of material and a strong appeal to the college set.

And so in 1967 DC tried-out a comic featuring a young stand-up, Woody Allen. The comic was Showcase #71 - a Maniaks try-out featuring a story about Woody Allen putting on a Civil War musical, written by young DC staffer E Nelson Bridwell.

Back in 1967, Woody Allen was a break-out star in movies, not only appearing in films Casino Royale and What’s New Pussycat, but was also heavily involved in writing the scripts. His appeal was of a brash New York humour revered by the pop culture intelligentsia, far removed from the comedians of prior generations. An acceptable Lenny Bruce.

As anyone who is familiar with Woody Allen’s standup routine of the early sixties as recorded on Long-Playing LPs will attest, his wandering monologues get seared into your brain, as they were no doubt by young writer E Nelson Bridwell. But material that is very funny when delivered in front of a crowd can become very laboured in the written form, and more so on the comic page. Bridwell even went so far as to include the "My parents bought me a dog. It was an ant. I called him Spot" story, but it comes across as pretty flat as rendered by Mike Sekowsky.

The comic died a death, and neither Maniaks nor Woody Allen appeared in another Showcase. DC did not try again, and quietly left their humour line to decline until it was quietly cancelled between 1971 and 1972. Don Rickles, the stand-up "insult" comic made a brief appearance in Jimmy Olsen #141, and that was it. Neal Adams was to draw the final 4 Jerry Lewis comics.

Humour comics resurfaced subsequently in comics targeted at the young crowd, usually as a TV tie-in to a family-friendly comedy or cartoon. More recently celebrities Stephen Colbert, David Letterman and Sarah Silverman have appeared as guest stars in the books of others, but It is difficult to image a DC comic today led by current stand-ups like Bill Burr or Patton Oswalt.

Will we see the re-surgence of comedians in the comics in the future?

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Favourite spooky Comic Covers from the Bronze Age

Inspired by a recent post over at McScotty’s blog (https://twthen.blogspot.com/2021/10/favourite-comics-best-mysteryhorror.html), and seeing that Halloween is fast approaching, I thought I’d put together a blog highlighting some of my most memorable spooky comic covers from the Bronze Age….not necessarily from comics dabbling in the supernatural, but simply those that sent a shiver down my spine to the extent that they come to mind almost fifty years later.

First up is Shadow #2, “Freak Show Murders”. This comic cover was the first time I’d seen The Shadow, whom I'd had seen previously mentioned in Fantasy Unlimited as a pulp hero template for Batman. This particular comic was in a batch that my Gran brought back to me in Southsea from the States following a family visit in September 1973. I had immediately phoned my pal Nigel to come round to our house, and I spread the comics that Gran had given my on the table-tennis table set up in our front room. The Shadow #2 caught my eye with its arresting green wash with the circus tent on a windy barren landscape with the solitary Shadow overseeing everything. It was my first exposure to the work of Mike Kaluta, and I was immediately a fan.

Next is up is Phantom Stranger #17 which I bought from one of Mrs King’s newsagents in Albert Road, Southsea around the end of March 1972. Superb cover (I can remember a lot of PS covers) by Neal Adams stuck in my mind all these years. Perhaps the horror of running from a train? The color highlighting and shadows is what sells the image. The story “Like A Ghost from the Ashes” contains some of Jim Aparo’s best work. and the care than Aparo put into the interior artwork was exemplary. (Aparo’s work for DC in that period 1970-1972 was the peak of his powers IMHO). I particularly liked his use of fine dots for shadow in this scene below.

My third spooky cover choice is Batman #237 "Night of the Reaper" which I got at the end of January 1972, featuring Batman and Robin involved in a story juxtaposing the horror of the Nazi concentration camps with the jollity of Tom Fagan’s annual Halloween bash in Rutland, Vermont. The cover is so striking with its dominant red background. I loved the idea of Fagan’s annual Halloween parade, and collected many other comics that featured it over the years (The later 3-part Amazing Adventures/JLA/Thor crossover was a particular highlight). The Batman comic itself has superb Adams artwork and a suitably abrupt ending from the inventive pen of Denny O’Neil. Plus we get to see DC writers featured as supporting players. I loved that “breaking the fourth wall” thing.

Next up are a couple of choices from House of Mystery, a comic which (along with House of Secrets) was a great favourite of mine in the early seventies. So many great Neal Adams covers in that 1969-1972 period, that I found it difficult to choose. Many featured young children in peril, interestingly. In the end I went for two covers, both because each served as the basis for subsequent covers featuring Batman.

The first is House of Mystery #174, the first of that title after it moved to a horror format. I did not pick this up at the time, only as a back issue from Alan Austin’s Fantasy Unlimited a few years later, when I was disappointed to find that it was a reprint issue. However, I was struck by its similarity to Brave & Bold #93, which had triggered my interest in collecting the House of Mystery title in the first place. B&B #93 "Red Water, Crimson Death" has great interior artwork and features a picture of Neal Adams himself on a page highlighting DC accolades at the Comic Art convention.

Similarly House of Mystery #187 (July/August 1970) is a favorite because it was the template for my all-time favourite Batman cover Detective #405, (December 1970) which featured the League of Assassins. The interior Detective comic artwork is typical Bob Brown, but the cover is outstanding. The inspiration presumably comes from the horror movie trope of the angry townspeople hunting down the monster/girl/hero.

Next up is Brave & Bold #92, featuring the Bat Squad. I picked this up at a newsagents in Torrington (remember of the joy of finding excellent quality back issues on spinner racks in out of the way places?) on a family journey back from North Devon in 1971, and read in the darkness of the back seat of the car illuminated by the interior car light. A great cover and story drawn by Nick Cardy, written by Bob Haney.

I loved the Batman of the Haneyverse, a guy who casually walked around town in his batsuit. This time he’s in that apocryphal hip London of the late sixties with fog and Carnaby Street and British police officers saying “By Jove”. The Bat Squad (comprised of a group of hippies helping ol’ Bats) never made a return appearance (and the fact that DC couldn’t even be bothered to get Ira Schnapp to create a proper logo for them on the cover signaled uncertainty about the groups' longevity), but the cover stayed in my mind all these years. Great use of colour to make the image work, especially the yellow of the torchlight. Nick Cardy is an unsung hero in the pantheon of cover artists.

Next up is Nick Fury, Agent of Shield #3, which I recently paid over the odds to get a decent copy recently, following a reminder in Kid’s blog over at https://kidr77.blogspot.com/ It is a classic cover of a woman in the shadow of a big house, running away, repurposed for the comic. I love it for featuring Batamn in the lower left, and the excellent Eisner inspired opening pages by Steranko. Some of his best work.

Incidentally House of Secrets seemed intent on producing similar covers with women running away from unseen horrors / see this run of covers from HoS.

I’ll close with two covers that appeared on paperbacks with comic connections.

The first is the cover of House of Mystery paperback tie-in HoM#1 written by Jack Oleck. The cover artwork by Wrightson has great colouring, and interior black & white spot illustrations convey his sensibility at its most ghoulish. I also had the follow up paperback, both bought in 1976 from Dark They Were & Golden-Eyed in London.

I’ll close with the cover of Doc Savage Bantam paperback #37, Hex. Not a comic cover, but up there with the best of James Bana’s painted covers. I bought it at a book store in Passaic NJ in July 1977. The cover was so striking that I’m surprised that Grafitti Designs have not published a poster print as they have done of many other Doc Savage paperback covers.

So, thanks to McScotty and Kid for the inspiration for this post. Sorry there has been a bit of a gap since the last one. Happy Halloween!

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

A SuperStuff Summer Special - Stingray, TV21 and a free gift

Lazing in the sun with only Mrs B., tolerant son and an iPhone for company, options for coming up with SuperStuff blog entries are a bit limited.

Back in 1965 I would also have had a copy of the TV21 Summer special for company.

That particular issue has long since disappeared, but the free Stingray “WASP” badge has survived down the years, stuck to the side of a mahogany money-box made by my Dad in the 1930s.

When I first got the free sticker, I attached it to the front of a steam-engine driver’s cap that my Dad gave me, and then subsequently I adorned the money-box with it.

Should I ease the sticker from the money-box and put it up for sale on eBay?

Saturday, September 18, 2021

Batman trading card stories #3: Yikes! Spikes! (And not Sugar and Spike)

Being Batman Day 2021, let’s turn our attention to one of the nastiest of death traps. Spikes!

Well, ol’ Bats does seem to be in a bit of a predicament in this one, doesn’t he? Even if the machinery must be incredibly complex to close in around him from four sides AND the top! Take a look closely at his eyes and you’ll see he’s a bit concerned! Only very infrequently do we see Bats’ eyes in the mask.

The image above is of the actual painting of Black Bat trading card #17 “Spikes of Death”. You’ll notice that the actual card as printed (see below) has removed the dots for Batman’s eyes before publication.

So what inspired this image? Well, as we’ve established in previous blogs, layout penciller Bob Powell and artist Norm Saunders had been provided with no “bible” for the upcoming Adam West TV show, nor view of advance episodes, so we have to look back to the pulps, to the 1943 Batman serial, and to a 1950’s Batman story published in Worlds Finest to determine where the inspiration for the painting came from.

The idea of a hero trapped between slowly closing walls has been a trope for many years in books and films. To then “up the ante” by adding spikes to the walls brings an extra level of sadism to what is definitively a torture chamber death trap.

Of course, the original idea came from the infamous medieval torture device, the Iron Maiden - a sarcophagus lined with metal spikes designed to first torture the unhappy victim before causing painful death.

The lurid pulps in the 1930s were not slow to get in on the act, with Dime Detective pulp from July 1933 being one of the earliest American crime magazines to display the Iron Maiden in action on its front cover.

A few years later Thrilling Mystery - the Fiend of Sleepy Hollow Vol II #1 Feb 1936 adapted the Iron Maiden concept for a particularly grisly cover painted by Ralph Desoto of a girl about to be impaled on a movable spiked wall.

But it wasn’t until 1943 that the first instance of Batman trapped between spikes attached to a moving wall occurred in the first Batman movie serial staring Lewis Wilson, a film serial responsible for many innovations which found their way into the canon of the Batman comics.

EC comics took up the spike theme in their Vault of Horror Vol 1 #13 (June 1950?) story Island of Death, where dogs fall into a pit lined with spikes.

If was a further three years later that the comic-book Batman finally encountered the spiked wall-menace on the printed page in Worlds Finest #62 (Jan-Feb 1953) "Sir Batman and The Black Knight" - where we find Batman &Robin trapped between walls of spikes.

In this story, Batman and Robin take on the guise of Medieval Knights to pursue the Black Rogue at Unqua Castle, north of Gotham City, a chateau in medieval style once owned by a rich millionaire and now abandoned.

In a surreal story by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang, our heroes (kitted our in armour), scale the castle, but find themselves in the spiky room. Only their quick wits, climbing abilities and a handy roof beam enable them to survive.

In April 1954, Sprang/Finger concocted “The Testing of Batman” in Batman #83 , as Batman & Robin undergo rigorous endurance tests, of which one is running on a conveyor belt away from huge spikes!

Once the Comics Code Authority cracked down on comics’ depiction of cruel and unusual situations in Feb 1955, that was the end of spiky threats in DC’s 4-colour magazines.

The British Avengers TV series of 1965 delved into medieval torture themes with an Iron Maiden serving as a secret entrance in the episode Castle De’ath, and walls with spikes shortly returned in the 1966 Batman TV episode “The Purrfect Crime” , which obviously owes a debt in staging to the original 1943 Batman TV serial. In this case, Batman finds the spikes are made of soft rubber, and the room is a decoy trap for Batman (the real trap subsequently being a man-eating tiger).

Five years later, the Iron Maiden made its return to DC comics in Mr Miracle #4 (Sept/Oct 1971) as the death trap on a ghoulish front cover. The scene is repeated in the story within. (Mr Miracle escapes by the use of an acid spray to disintegrate the back of the sarcophagus).

More recently the threat of a pit with spikes was to be found in the opening scenes of the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Indiana Jones subsequently finds himself trapped in a room with spikes protruding from a descending ceiling in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).

I’m sure there are other instances out there, but from the perspective of the Batman trading card, I think it is safe to say that Bob Powell and Norman Saunders were inspired by the 1943 Batman serial and the pre-CCA code World’s Finest #62.

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[Random Observation #1: the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed the similarity between the endings of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade and Batman “The Perfect Crime” in that in each case the female villain falls into a crevasse in the ground, and is holding on with one hand while straining to reach out either to the Holy Grail or the treasure. In both cases, the women fall to their supposed demise because their greed outweighs their survival instinct, despite the best efforts and exhortations of our heroes.]

Random Observation #2: the chivalric characters adopted by Batman and Robin in the 1953 World’s Finest tale probably contributed to the inspiration for Knight & Squire by Grant Morrison.

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Swipe! Sketch-a-graph and the New Gods

Original Sketch-a-Graph

Going through boxes in the basement the other day I came across my old Sketch-a-Graph - a coathanger-sized device that enabled one with modest artistic skills to reproduce a drawing by the use of a felt-tipped pen (or biro or pencil) and a drawing pin (thumb tack). Said reproduction would either be larger or smaller depending upon the placement of the pen and the tracing stylus.

I’m pretty sure that everyone in my class of 12-year olds at school were required to have one for Geography homework. Very handy for tracing the Isle of Wight or South America without breaching Ordinance Survey copyright no doubt. But also very handy for converting favourite comic panels into larger posters, or simply making swipes that could be used in fanzines (like our original SuperStuff issues).

Not many of my original swipes survive. I did a couple from Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 which I inked in black India ink which ended up in an issue of Alan Austin’s Comics Unlimited sometime around 1975, and earlier in April 1974 I swiped four panels from Jack Kirby’s “New Gods #6”, one of which is included below. (The others are back at home and unaccessible from my sun-bed). My knowledge of copyright at age 15 was a bit hazy, so the “Thanks to Jack Kirby” tag line should more accurately have read “Swiped from Jack Kirby”.

Orion © DC.

In those days when photocopying was expensive and photo-copy paper was shiny I either relied on the Sketch-a-Graph or on projecting photographed slide transparencies of my comic covers onto the reverse side of large piece of unused wallpaper to create custom poster artwork for my bedroom.

My pal Geoff Cousins had (and still has) a far better aptitude than me for original artwork and graphic design, but I felt pretty pleased with my efforts back in the Bronze Age.

Today I went back and took a look at the source comic - New Gods #6 “The Glory Boat” - and the entire comic really is an awesome example of Kirby at the peak of his abilities. Such power in the imagery. This was the early days of Mike Royer inking Kirby, when his brush work seemed closer to that of Vince Colletta than it subsequently became.

But what a cover! What a splash page! And Kirby was great at drawing ugly faces contorted in horror.

I believe I only ever did swipes of Batman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, The Shadow and Orion which probably reflects my tastes in artists - Adams, Kaluta and Kirby - as much as anything.

What did you do, SuperStuff readers? Still have that Sketch-a-Graph?