Bronze Age Obscurities - Sojourn #2

 

The landscape front cover of Sojourn #2.

As I noted in the comments to last week’s blog Bronze Age Obscurities, Sojourn #1 taking a look at the first issue of the innovative independent large-format comic, I managed to locate a copy of issue #2 for sale. The comic arrived in the post a couple of days ago, so I thought I’d share the final issue with our readers.

The second issue immediately introduces two changes in format; (1) the cover is landscape and (2) the logo now carries the strapline "New Vistas in Narrative Art".

Comparison of Sojourn to large-format DC and standard format comics.

Soujourn was the brainchild of Joe Kubert and Ivan Snyder. The first issue was dated Sept 1977 on the front cover. This second issue has no date on the cover, but the indicia inside also dates this issue as Sept 1977, and also numbers issues #2 as #1 by mistake.

The artistic content is very much the same as issue #1, continuing the stories by the likes of Kubert himself, Dick Giordano, Lee Elias, Sergio Aragones, John Severin and Doug Wildey , with another stunning fold-out poster by Steve Bissette and editorial support from Jack Harris.  The magazine takes a tentative step to include text articles, with a huge article with incredibly small font by Jack Harris on the current state of the comic business, and another article on the film oeuvre of Roger Corman by Bill Kelley.

This was to be the last issue of Sojourn. I feel that this comic/magazine hybrid died before it could get traction. By issue #2 it was becoming a comic/text magazine hybrid, not too dissimilar from the Marvel Black & Whites of a few years earlier, but not serving the needs of Superhero fans, or cross-promoting recent films in the pop-culture genre.

There were other large format magazines at this time - Steranko’s Comixscene/Mediascene/Prevue and The Monster Times come to mind as magazines which started with large format broadsheet pages. The Monster Times did not survive beyond the mid-seventies and Prevue's survival into the 80s was at the expense of moving to a more traditional format.

Sojourn was aiming for a more mature audience, a late teen/early twenties audience familiar with underground comix and the satire of National Lampoon. The artwork in Sojourn #2 pushes the envelope a bit ; some nudity in the art by Dick Giordano puts the book beyond the reach of the Comics Code in its stated objective of new vistas of narrative art.

Perhaps lack of success was due to bad timing. Large-format DC Limited Collectors Editions (the brainchild of Sol Harrison to create something different on the newsstand) were close to the end of their run. (1972-1978) . Famous First Edition facsimiles would run until 1979.  With very few exceptions, these were reprint books, as were the Marvel Treasury Editions of the same era.  

Up until this time, Kubert had largely avoided large format books. In 1975 Kubert had drawn the cover of DC's Limited Collectors edition of The Bible  (July ,C-36), plus his artwork had also appeared in reprints of the DC Tarzan stories in large format in the same series. 

Perhaps the lack of success was down to audience awareness. As far as I can find, the only ad for Sojourn appeared of page 4 of the June 1977 issue of National Lampoon. A lovely bit of art by Joe Kubert of Tor, but insufficient to capture audience awareness, or comprehension of the innovative new format.

© National Lampoon. Courtesy The Internet Archive

© National Lampoon. Courtesy The Internet Archive

Anyway, I've included some pictures of the pages of Sojourn #2. I encourage you to track down the issues; they are a lot of fun, even if they didn't break the mould of comic publishing.

© Steve Bissette - fold out poster

© John Severin (apologies for glare on photo)

© Jack Harris. A view on the comic industry. Small font!

© Kronos by Lee Elias