A Sense of Doubt blog post #3190 - Comic Book Sunday for November 12th 2023 - Malaise, Daredevil, '70s Sword & Sorcery, Spooky EC Comics, and Graphic Novel Awards
Can anything cure Marvel’s malaise?
House of Ideas?
It’s the dog days of August, as the comics industry recovers from their big party at San Diego Comic-Con, while quietly prepping for the New York Comic Con bacchanal to come.
As I noted in a few of my post-Comic-Con rundowns, I was somewhat discouraged to see that the industry as a whole wasn’t able to take advantage of “The Comic-Con Without Media” to seize the moment with some headline-making developments. Granted, they only had about two weeks to pivot when the SAG-AFTRA strike made it clear there would be no big news out of Hall H. Big comics news that had been planned for a more propitious time couldn’t just be shifted on the marketing schedule. But the answer to “what was the big news out of Comic-Con?” is mostly a bunch of smaller stories.
It doesn’t help that the industry itself is in a slump at the moment. Sales haves slowed or (at best) plateaued from their Pandemic-Era highs, and while no comics publisher Funko’d it up, (expanding wildly and disastrously based on temporary sales patterns), no one (aside from some crowdfunders) is really whooping it up either.
It’s not a knock on the material. We’ve had so many great comics for so long that we take it for granted how much good stuff is out there.
But there’s no denying that the periodical business, which drives so much of the comics shop traffic, seems particularly tapped out at the moment, with price increases and a bombardment of variant covers and mini-series being loaded into a mason jar to turn into mush. And unlike my overnight oats, it’s not a particularly healthy diet.
Which brings us to The State of Marvel. I don’t read Marvel Comics regularly, so take this as an outsider’s perspective. But even as an observer, the State of the Big Two is still key to many readers and retailers and tends to drive a lot of the narrative. DC is bravely hanging in there despite corporate contempt, and doing what they can. But what’s going on at the House of Ideas seems to have escaped much scrutiny. And the answer is: not much.
Marvel’s current malaise was spotlighted in a piece at SKTCHD, Marvel Might Be in Need of a Fresh Start. You’ll need to subscribe to read the whole thing, but even the teaser lays it out, starting with Marvel’s rather mid SDCC announcements – a return to Secret Wars, a new battle one shot, Greg Capullo’s return to Marvel .
These announcements didn’t build excitement; they made me ask myself a single question.
“What’s wrong with Marvel right now?”
I’m not the only one wondering that. It’s been a common topic of late. Whether it’s creators, retailers, or plain old readers, there’s a simmering sense of doubt and discontent with the direct market’s biggest publisher. In recent conversations about Marvel, words and phrases like “disillusioned,” “unfocused,” and “no identity” were pretty typical. It’s easy to see why when you look at the publisher’s current slate and those recent announcements. While there are good comics in its line, the whole just feels like a mess. The pervasiveness of that feeling has resulted in customer confidence fading, retailer skepticism rising, and general enthusiasm for the publisher waning.
And it goes on from there with many voices echoing this same sense of malaise. (SKTCHD auteur David Harper did follow up with a tribute to writer Jed MacKay as “one of the strongest writing talents in Marvel’s current mix, and someone deserving of the Avengers throne.) But this ennui is widespread. An informal poll of Marvel Rundown writers in the Beat slack revealed a general lack of enthusiasm for Marvel’s current slate similar to those expressed in the SKTCHD piece.
So what is going on at Marvel? Well, let’s start with a look at sales charts, such as they are. As I’ve noted many times, the lack of reliable sales charts is a big driver of the comics industry doldrums, but ICv2 is doing the hard work of compiling charts from ComicsHub retailers. According to the latest report, here’s the Top Ten comics by units in July.
| 1 | Knight Terrors: Batman #1 (Of 2) | DC Comics | $4.99 | ||
| 2 | Amazing Spider-Man #29 | Marvel Comics | $3.99 | ||
| 3 | Knight Terrors First Blood #1 (One Shot) | DC Comics | $5.99 | ||
| 4 | Knight Terrors #1 (Of 4) | DC Comics | $3.99 | ||
| 5 | X-Men #24 | Marvel Comics | $3.99 | ||
| 6 | Moon Knight #25 | Marvel Comics | $9.99 | ||
| 7 | Venom #23 | Marvel Comics | $3.99 | ||
| 8 | Incredible Hulk #181 Facsimile Edition (2023 Printing) | Marvel Comics | $3.99 | ||
| 9 | Blade #1 | Marvel Comics | $4.99 | ||
| 10 | X-Men Hellfire Gala #1 (2023) | Marvel Comics | $8.99 |
DC is #1! Then some such regulars as Amazing Spider-Man (Zeb Wells/Ed McGuinness), X-Men (Gerry Duggan/Joshua Cassara), Moon Knight (that Jed MacKay/various), Venom (Torunn Grønbekk/Ken Lashley) and a Blade relaunch (Bryan Hill/Elena Casagrande). That a reprint of a 50 year old comic lands at #8 is kind of concerning, but all seems normal, and certainly some creators who haven’t been over-exposed.
Maybe that’s the problem. Too normal. Looking at the solicits for the month (heroically compiled by Joe Grunenwald every month) it’s a sprawling mass of variants, minis, crossovers, and reprints. An omnibus of the Fraction/Aja Hawkeye run caught my eye. Maybe it’s just these fractured times (or my own interests) but it’s been a long time since a run on a book got that degree of universal acclaim. Marvel’s recent shocking lack of success in the book market basically backs up that idea.
Marvel’s last big swing was the X-Men reboot led by Jonathan Hickman, colloquially known as HOX/POX, back in 2019. Of course, that was a different world entirely. And prior to that, Marvel relied on a series of annual “relaunches” that were pretty much the same, but had snappy (or repetitive) branding. As I noted at the time:
Adding to the ritual nature of these reboots, the timeline for Marvel’s last 9 months was known 9 months ago. I was informed by multiple sources, the minute Legacy was announced, that it was but a “placeholder” relaunch, and after it came out (and was expected to fail) embattled e-i-c Axel Alonso would be gone and a *new* event would unfold to clear the slate.
Everything came to pass exactly as foretold.
If you’re wondering why waste a reboot/relaunch on a non-starter like Legacy, well, so is everyone else, including retailers who have been complaining bitterly about Marvel’s haphazard business plan for years.
By contrast, DC has only relaunched three times since 2011.
Indeed, relaunches were a feature of the Alonso Era as editor in chief; since CB Cebulski took over in 2017, they’ve fallen out of favor.
Again, purely as an outside observer, you’d have to guess that folks inside Marvel are probably aware of these issues. I have no idea if executive editor Tom Brevoort’s announced move to the X-line is part of that, but the way that all rolled out was curious, to say the least. Brevoort’s initial hints about a big move were launched in his newsletter, with an interesting account:
So I wound up having a meeting with Dan [Buckley, Marvel’s president] this week, one in which he told me he was going to ask me to do something that I wasn’t going to want to do, and then proceeded through a combination of need, flattery, genuine admiration, duty and responsibility to get me to agree to take on the specific mission that he was hoping to entice me into. Seriously, I know something about pitching an idea to people, and this was like watching a world class hurler throw a perfect game.
It does sound like Brevoort was dragged kicking and screaming into the X-mansion from that account. But the vague-booking here led to a solid week of wild speculation from the ICC (internet comics community, mostly about Cebulski maybe stepping down as EIC, so Brevoort came clean in a FB post, and later his newsletter:
And while I’m sure that everybody is going to have a million questions about this, I’m not actually going to talk about it for some time yet—both because I have plenty to do in terms of wrapping up my current assignments and handing them over to others but more importantly, because the current X-creators and editors are in the midst of an epic and long-gestating storyline, and it’s only right that the spotlight remain on them. So I ask everybody to be patient for a while—I wouldn’t even have written the above except that I seriously underestimated the cyclone of speculation that last week’s Newsletter would set off. Seriously, there aren’t all that many of you guys, I foolishly didn’t think this would get so big so fast. As usual, I’m the chump.
While the reasons for the switch haven’t been made public, maybe it’s just a case of a fresh pair of eyes on mutants, or just giving everyone some new assignments to freshen things up.
And a deep-down yearning to freshen things up seems to be where everyone is at on this. Perhaps sensing the malaise, CBR took a stab at giving Marvel some advice, with Marvel Comics Needs New Imprints To Take Better Risks
So the main Marvel Universe might not be the best place to push forward with risky ideas, even though the company did so on occasion in the past. However, imprints have proven themselves to be valuable assets in this department and could provide the key to future success. While companies like DC Comics are being implored to bring back imprints like Vertigo, perhaps this same discussion should be had concerning Marvel’s upcoming slate. Returning and debuting Marvel imprints allow for freedoms that the brand currently doesn’t have.
Lest we forget, it was the Marvel Knights imprint of 1998 that pretty much kicked off the “modern era” or at least, post-sales crash era, of The Big Two. The Ultimate Marvel line was even more brash, with a whole new timeline, before that became just another forgotten morass of continuity.
Of course, Marvel has another problem in all of the yearnings for freshness: in 1998 it was just a comic book company; now it’s the biggest brand in the known human universe, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been driving the entertainment industry for about 15 years. The MCU itself is badly slumping, however, and it’s likely that Infinity War/ Endgame was the highpoint. Loki and Hawkeye might have been much needed distractions when we were stuck at home, but now even Disney head honcho Bob Iger has tapped the brakes.
The comics line has had an uneasy relationship with the MCU from the start. While you might wish for comics that tied in more directly with the most successful film franchise of all time, that idea never really worked, and vague tie-ins in general have fallen into disfavor universally.
A larger problem, and one that people brought up several times when I discussed this topic with them in recent days, is the inexorable ticking clock of demographics. Habitual periodical comics readers are old, and getting older. Younger readers have become accustomed to getting their comics stories in 200-page volumes (i.e. manga tankobon) created by a single creator (though often aided by an entire studio) with a single viewpoint, and a single ongoing story, for a reasonable price between $10-15. Either that or reading them in bite sized chunks on their phone for free or micropayments (generic webtoons.)
The comics periodical is a format whose primary market is comics retailers. Complaints about these newfangled stories by whippersnappers that don’t interest old time readers is nothing but the inevitable dulling of the senses when exposed to the law of diminishing returns.
The executives who run the comics industry are, by and large, an intelligent bunch, by normal standards. They are aware of the issues I just mentioned. But solving them is an ongoing process that doesn’t have an easy solution. You sort of have an industry based on marketing a nostalgia product, and that can’t be changed overnight.
But one part of that solution is creating an environment where new ideas can flourish. Barbie wasn’t Warner Bros. biggest movie of all time because it was a feminist take on a well known toy (although that didn’t hurt.). It landed because people were bored of everything else and they finally got something new.
Since Marvel Knights, both Marvel and DC have become increasingly editor driven in how they present all their stories. In some ways it’s the direct result of their place as cogs in the wheels of massive movie studio properties. I’m told things are a bit looser at DC these days, and Harper noted that in his Marvel piece:
The latter is connected to persistent creative losses at the publisher, as top names like Chip Zdarsky, Kelly Thompson, and Jason Aaron have seen their Marvel contributions wane and up-and-comers like Tini Howard, Vita Ayala, and Matthew Rosenberg have disappeared altogether. There’s been a quiet migration from Marvel to DC and other publishers, with few notable names replacing them. The impact of that brain drain is starting to be felt.
Harper ended where I’m ending: Marvel needs to loosen up and try new things and create an environment where creators can create. Brevoort taking on the X-men isn’t enough. Is there a way to allow more experimentation and new takes on Marvel’s characters? Will we ever see another Alan Moore arrive to stand what we thought comics could do entirely on their head? Would Rachel Smythe taking on the Avengers fix everything? Even the failures of such experiments would probably be more exciting than what we’re seeing now.
Sword & Sorcery at DC: The 1970s
Sword & Sorcery comics at DC Comics was a slow process. Marvel had struck gold with Conan the Barbarian in October 1970 but their main competitor watched and waited to see if this new craze would go anywhere. DC had tried it back in 1968-69 with “Nightmaster” in DC Showcase, which pre-dated the Marvel Cimmerian, but remained unconvinced. The three issue special was written by Denny O’Neil and drawn by Jerry Grandenetti and Berni Wrightson (with help from Mike Kaluta and Jeff Jones).
The company published scattered S&S pieces throughout their horror and adventure anthology titles but didn’t bite again for two years with the experiment “Fangs of Fire” (Wonder Woman #202, September-October 1972). This special issue, written by SF writer, Samuel R. Delany, would eventually result in DC first official S&S comic. Sword of Sorcery (March/April -November/December 1973). It was based on the idea that Marvel had Robert E. Howard, so DC would take Fritz Leiber. The comic only ran for five issues. Most of the contents was adaptations of Leiber’s Fafhrd & Gray Mouser but some original stories appeared too. It was written by Denny O’Neil and penciled by Howard Chaykin. Inkers were various but some of the work was done by Berni Wrightson. Walt Simonson did some solo work.
DC’s second try would be modeled more closely on Conan. Ernie Chan, the man who inked John Buscema’s work for Conan was the featured artist, making Claw look very CTB. Ernie hung around for seven of the twelve issues. Claw the Unconquered (May/June 1975-August/September 1978) The comic was written by David Michelinie and drawn by Ernie Chan, later by Keith Giffen who was wonderfully experimental. Claw is a warrior cursed with a demon hand, which comes in handy in big battles.
Stalker (June/July 1975-December 1975/January 1976) last four issues. It was written by Paul Levitz and drawn by Steve Ditko and Wally Wood. Stalker has his soul taken by the Demon Lord Dgrth and goes on a quest to reclaim it. The poor sales on this comic surprise me. Ditko and Wood, it should have been a dynasty but it didn’t look like Conan so….
Hercules Unbound (October/November 1975-August/September 1977) went for twelve issues. It was written by Gerry Conway and drawn by José Luis García-López and Wally Wood for the first half then was written by David Michelinie and drawn by Walt Simonson and Wally Wood and Cary Bates took over as writer at the end. This is one of the first SF-tinted Sword & Sorcery series, set in the post-apocalyptic future. The 1980s would embrace this mixture.
Mike Grell’s The Warlord who debuted in 1st Issue Special #8 (November 1975) and then (January/February 1976-Winter 1988) was DC’s big winner. Volume one ran to 133 issues with several follow-up mini-series. Grell blends Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar, Sword & Sorcery and other SF ideas in this series about Travis Morgan. Grell slowly distances himself from the comic after issue 50. The best ones are the earliest ones. Again, Science Fiction elements move the sub-genre away from traditional Robert E. Howard.
Beowulf Dragonslayer (April/May 1975-Debruary/March 1976) lasted only six issues, written by Michael E. Uslan and drawn by Ricardo Villamonte. I won’t lie. This was my favorite of all these DC comics. The blend of Anglo-Saxon heroics with legendary monsters from other cultures made it something special. Richardo Villamonte’s artwork was as exciting as anything in Conan the Barbarian but had a Gothic feel to it that surpassed mere thud & blunder. Villamonte worked on DC’s horror titles as well. The comic canceled before the coming wave of comic book deaths…
The DC implosion of 1978 would conquer Claw but spare The Warlord. DC tried to find ways to keep S&S around like DC Special #22-25 (June/July 1976-January 1977), which reprinted Joe Kubert’s “The Viking Prince”. But the sad truth was Sword & Sorcery at DC would have to lurk in the back-up features of The Warlord (Claw, DragonSword, etc.) until 1981. That year Roy Thomas and Ernie Colon would give us Arak, Son of Thunder (derided as “Conan the Indian”). Later Sword & Sorcery at DC include Arion, Lord of Atlantis, Amethyst, Princess of Gem World and Lords of the Ultra-Realm in the 1980s. None of these would prove to be a big win for DC, a company that was willing to leave heroic fantasy to Marvel and the many independent comics that were publishing S&S throughout the 1980s.
The Definition of Sword & Sorcery
I don’t waste much time on defining Sword & Sorcery but it seems to be a thing again on the Internet. Men like Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp spent a goodly amount of time on it back in the 1960s so I didn’t need to. But it’s back again. And perhaps for different reasons.
In the pages of the fanzine Amra, Fritz Leiber (with Michael Moorcock’s assistance) gave the sub-genre its name. This was significant because it was really hard to know what you were talking about with some labels. The Amra crowd identified that this style of heroic fantasy has swords (combat and action scenes) and sorcery (magic, monsters and evil). Thus Lin Carter came up with his definition back in 1973 for the Flashing Swords anthologies:
We call a story Sword & Sorcery when it is an action tale, derived from the traditions of the pulp magazine adventure story, set in a land or age or world of the author’s invention—a milieu in which magic actually works and the gods are real—and a story, moreover, which pits a stalwart warrior in direct conflict with the forces of supernatural evil.
This definition has problems. It is limited to tales of barbarian hero taking out evil sorcerers. Which much of the sub-genre is but there are plenty of examples, even in Robert E. Howard’s work, where this falls down. This also could be a description of Beowulf. Which isn’t surprising since such old tales are the great-great (add more greats) grandfather of S&S.
And this, I think, is the current problem. Being a Bronze Age Boy, I can remember the early Conan the Barbarians, Savage Sword of Conans, etc. as they appeared in wire racks. (Yes, we still had those.) Which is why I don’t worry about the definition of S&S much. I can simply remember these old publications and think, “That’s Sword & Sorcery”.
But if you were born when people said things like “Sit on it!” or “Tubular!” or even “Meh!” you might not have this frame of reference. You came into a world that was far less clear on what was what. First, in the 1970s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons came along brought the Howardian school and the Tolkienian school of heroic fantasy together. You may have grown up in a world where Conan and Legolas hang out together. Things were never the same after 1973.
But it gets worse. The 1990s saw publishing abandon Sword & Sorcery as a label. You wrote “Fantasy” or “High Fantasy” or “Epic Fantasy” or god forbid “Vanilla Fantasy”. This was the result of the 1980s Barbarian movies, which pulled S&S down to the lowest level (and tiny budgets). Book sellers didn’t want to be associated with that (except for TOR and their Conan pastiche line and the publishers of Xena novelizations). Fantasy publishers wanted the sheen of the Fantasy bestseller in The Lord of the Rings/The Sword of Shannara/etc. for their products with hopes of big sales. Sword & Sorcery was now the domain of the fanzines again. (Which was okay. It dwelt there before.) AD&D published some along with dungeon crawls and articles on the difference between a broad sword and a bastard sword.
2008 comes along, riding high on the success of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films, and a rebirth of interest in old school S&S happens. Perhaps that was your first exposure to the sub-genre. Everybody’s talking about Sword & Sorcery again. But shouldn’t that make things easier?
Yes and no. Not surprising a new interest in Conan comics sprang from this. If you read Dark Horse’s Conan the Barbarian you might have an idea what we are talking about. But later we have DC and Marvel pulling Conan into the superhero genre. That’s going to muddy the waters. Is Conan a mutant? Does he have super-powers? We don’t want to be too precious about this. Kull did some time traveling to help out Bran Mak Morn. Elric had his share of Science Fictional episodes at the End of Time. Fafhrd & Gray Mouser time traveled to ancient Afghanistan before they hung out with Wonder Woman. Conan did some too with the What If line back in the 1970s. Heroic fantasy lends itself to imaginative combinations. And we wouldn’t want it any other way.
But it muddies the water.
So what is my definition of Sword & Sorcery? Well, my version of all this has been spiced by my wanting to sell my heroic fantasy fiction to certain magazines. One of these was Bardic Runes (1994) (which I never appeared in). The editor, Michael McKenny, wanted heroic fantasy but he did not want Sword & Sorcery. The tales he bounced taught me what S&S was.
Good Sword & Sorcery has Horror elements. The savage battle between hero and monster can be bloody and grim. The antagonist may be part ghost, a lich from eons ago, an evil necromancer, or a legion of goblins. What Michael McKenny wanted was fantastic stories that weren’t about any of that. His loss in the end, I think. I have tried to read old copies of Bardic Runes and I find most of the material tepid. But, of course, I do. I am a hopeless Sword & Sorcery fanatic. I can appreciate the softer stuff (I find Robin McKinley and Evangeline Walton brilliant.) But my soul belongs on the plains of Cimmeria where some Lovecraftian Horror lies in wait in a tomb. (And that sodding skeleton had better get up!) Much better!
Sword & Sorcery is Fantasy fiction with a strong dollop of the Gothic in it. (And you think defining S&S is tough, try defining the Gothic!) One key feature of the Gothic sensibility (oh, I felt all Jane Austin when I said that!) is the idea of the past haunting the future. What is The Lord of the Rings in one sentence: a ring from the past stirs up shit in the future. Conan faces a lich from the past, faces a dark cult that worships a Lovecraftian entity, faces a flying ape from a long, lost epoch, faces… You get the idea. Kull’s present day political struggles in Valusia are yawn-worthy until the force behind them turns out to be a prehistoric snake race who can appear human. The shadows of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft loam large here.
All of this is to arrive here: the best Sword & Sorcery writers are also Horror writers. Robert E. Howard wrote the classic “Pigeons From Hell“. Fritz Leiber wrote Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness. Clark Ashton Smith wrote such a blend it is often hard to tell which genre he is working in. Michael Moorcock would appear to be an exception but he isn’t really. Rather than base his Elric tales on REH’s heroic model he chose the Gothic novels of Radcliffe and Walpole, the forerunners to Horror fiction. If you want to make your dark forces appear scary, having a writer’s toolkit from the Horror genre makes sense. Others that fit this bill include Karl Edward Wagner (“Sticks”), Henry Kuttner (“The Graveyard Rats”), Michael Shea (“The Autopsy”), and even C. L. Moore, who wrote the Northwest Smith tales for Weird Tales, with a spacy-Horror blend.
This also explains why L. Sprague de Camp’s S&S (Novaria, Pusad, etc.) never quite works for me. De Camp is Science Fiction writer at heart and his heroic fantasy can never quite escape that fact. He inherited this curse (my opinion!) from John W. Campbell. Norvell W. Page and Jack Williamson suffer from the same. Their vision for S&S was always a logically explained branch of Fantasy. No ghosts need apply!
Conclusion
There’s my definition. Or my criteria anyway. I’m not really sure why anyone cares about this today. Being labeled Sword & Sorcery is not the handicap it was thirty years ago. My Arthan the bear-man novels are clearly Sword & Sorcery. I wanted that in the branding of the covers. You can’t look at M. D. Jackson’s excellent covers and think: is this vanilla fantasy? You know instantly there will action and evil in generous helpings. Is it old school? I think so, but with a modern sensibility (pass the tea please, Jane!) The days of alpha males rescuing helpless maidens (soon to be deflowered by said barbarian) are long gone. The worst of S&S can happily go away while the best, the raw power of heroes of all kinds against massive opposing forces of evil can stay.
The thirty longlisted entries ranged from a silent tale about loneliness and connection in Mongolia; Scottish folklore and queer love; fictional, biographical and autobiographical tales of disability; mysterious murders and disappearances; documentary explorations of the right to protest, values and religious belief; and more.
Award director Corinne Pearlman said,
“This year we received 170 entries, nearly 50% more than in previous years, which is an illustration of the huge number of comics creators seeking publication in a very restricted market. Many have been burning the midnight oil to prepare their entries and we are grateful to all of them for sharing such a high standard of work. We had enormous pleasure in reading all the submissions, but several readings and vibrant conversations later, we are all happy to celebrate these 30 works-in-progress.”
Entrants were to submit 15-30 page extracts of their work in progress. The winner will be offered a publishing contract with SelfMadeHero, an advance against royalties, editorial and design support to bring their work-in-progress project to fruition, plus a £500 cash prize from The bks Agency. Longlisted entries will be also be displayed at Thought Bubble Festival in Harrogate from November 10 to 12; with the shortlist being declared November 10. The winner will be unveiled at an event held at Waterstones Piccadilly, London, on December 11.
The judging panel comprised broadcast journalist Alex Fitch; SelfMadeHero publisher Emma Hayley; graphic novelist, artist, and 2018-shortlisted entrant Sabba Khan (What Is Home, Mum?); Cartoon Museum Learning Officer Steve Marchant; writer/editor Ayoola Solarin; contemporary artist Mark Wallinger; and award director Corinne Pearlman.
For a synopsis of each title, check out the First Graphic Novel Award website. The thirty longlisted entrants are:
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*two entries
Originally longlisted work was to be displayed at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival on the weekend of September 29, two weeks after the September 14 deadline. The bumper crop of 170 submissions seemingly required more time for careful consideration to reach the longlist of 30 titles – as the award timeline has shifted slightly.
The First Graphic Novel Award has been around since 2012. Originally called the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition (sponsored by Myriad Editions) it ran until 2020. Each edition has lead to the publication of critically acclaimed work – from winners and finalists. The 2023 First Graphic Novel Award is sponsored by London’s Cartoon Museum, publisher SelfMadeHero, and literary management company The bks Agency; with grant aid from the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Other partners of the award include former sponsoring-publisher Myriad Editions, the LDComics network, VIP Brands, and UK comics events Lakes International Comic Art Festival and Thought Bubble.
In Search of Gil Scott-Heron
Writer: Thomas Mauceri
Artist: Seb Piquet
Translator: James Hogan
Letterer: Lauren Bowes
Publisher: Titan Comics
Gil Scott-Heron was a complicated figure. Largely known for his spoken-word poetry (in particular ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’) that helped to birth Rap and Hip Hop as we know it, Heron spent a better part of his life frustrated by the genre, and his subsequent nickname of the ‘Godfather of Rap.’ He spent years railing against the horrors of substance abuse, only to eventually become trapped by it himself toward the end of his life.
Thomas Mauceri explores these contradictions, along with artist Seb Piquet and letterer Lauren Bowes, throughout In Search of Gil Scott-Heron, a hybrid biography/memoir that mixes the story of the so-called ‘Godfather of Rap’ with the author’s own journey to discover meaning in his life.
The book isn’t unlike some of Heron’s poetry. The structure is a bit confusing at first, launching us right into the subject with little warning. Yet, once we adjust and figure out the pattern of the piece, it becomes more easily digestible and understandable.
In Search begins with Heron’s death, on the day where Mauceri was meant to have met him for the first time. Mauceri, a French Documentarian, had spent years tracking Heron down in an attempt to make a film about him, only for him to unfortunately pass just before they had planned to meet. We then watch a very strange scene unfold; Mauceri, a man who barely knew Heron, has to call Heron’s friends and loved ones to let them know he’s passed, as he sits inside Heron’s apartment.
It’s a surreal experience, and one that Piquet depicts well. As friends come by the apartment to mourn, Piquet shows Mauceri as distant from those around him, with a significant amount of space between himself and the mourners in the apartment. He seems smaller, less sure of himself and his place in this world. This continues into the funeral, where he sits isolated in the back, while subdued blues and grays creep in around him. It’s a well utilized device, and one that’s flipped on its head at the end once we and Mauceri find some sense of closure, however brief it might be.
We then move into the meat of the book, which jumps between flashbacks to Mauceri’s life, interspersed with snippets of Heron’s own life and brief musical interludes showcasing some of Heron’s more famous pieces. In these single page interludes, Mauceri balances lyrical analysis with a focus on collaborator Brian Jackson’s powerful compositions, which were just as essential to Heron’s pieces as his vocals. Piquet flexes his muscles on these pages, with evocative scenes that capture the heart of the piece being discussed.
The journey through Mauceri’s life provides context and perspective on why he began following the life of Heron, moving through Mauceri’s experiences as a foreign exchange student in America, while contrasting that with Heron’s own time in college. As Mauceri has to contend with anti-immigrant and racist sentiments before and after 9/11, he learns about Heron’s life, and becomes fascinated by the many contradictions.
The story flows well, but again, there’s that bit of structural wonkiness that takes a little bit to get used to. However, it’s not a difficult read, which is helped by the translation of the text James Hogan has put together. There are a few moments where the phrasing reads somewhat strange, but it’s not glaring, and doesn’t take away from the read as a whole. Bowes’ lettering is straightforward and clean, perfect for the style of this book.
At the end of the day, this is a fascinating read. There’s a supplemental discography written by Dorothée Nolan that adds great detail to Heron’s life where Mauceri was unable to mention it. If it hasn’t been clear thus far, this book is the documentary Mauceri originally set out to make. The personal feel of the story itself, coupled with Piquet’s expressive characters and control over colors, give a full picture of Heron’s life, with the added benefit of getting to learn about Mauceri’s interesting life and his own personal journey.
GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Patrick McDonnell’s THE SUPER HERO’S JOURNEY is a unique take on Marvel Comics
The book features a mix of original art with repurposed work from classic Marvel Comics.
The Super Hero’s Journey
Writer and Artist: Patrick McDonnell
Letters: Todd Klein
Colors: Robert McDonnell
Designer: Shawn Dahl
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Last year, Alex Ross launched the MarvelArts line at Abrams ComicArts with his graphic novel, Fantastic Four: Full Circle. Marvel is infamous for its lack of evergreen graphic novels; stories that are reprinted constantly, don’t require knowledge of canon, and stand completely on their own as someone’s first comic. Ross’ Full Circle attempted to be just that: a quintessential Fantastic Four story, beautifully drawn and printed in an oversized format that allows the medium to shine to its fullest potential. Even people like me, who don’t read a lot of Fantastic Four comics, were completely taken in by the artistry and presentation that we just frankly don’t often see with Marvel trades.
This year, Patrick McDonnell follows up Alex Ross with the newest entry in the Marvel Arts line, The Super Hero’s Journey. Told through both original art by McDonnell, and repurposing of classic pages from Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck and Vince Colletta, this graphic novel follows a collection of Marvel heroes who are faced with the power of overwhelming negativity. McDonnell draws a connection between religious ritual and superhero comics on the spinner rack, telling a framing story where he reminisces on family church trips that were followed by visits to the local Pharmacy, complete with Soda Fountain and a comic book rack. Images of the church are juxtaposed with the image of Lee and Ditko’s Eternity, meanwhile the comics are referred to as McDonnell’s “alter.” The classic Marvel bullpen here become disciples, spreading the word of alternate realities and battles over the fate of the universe.
The choice to shift back and forth between these two styles helps to encapsulate the inherent tension between a child’s perspective on the superhero world and the more mature nature of the stories being told. McDonnell feels as if he’s calling attention to how the often complicated frustrations of a typical Marvel hero can often be remedied by the simplified concepts of good and evil that a child brings into existence. If the spinner rack is indeed the alter, then these are the stories of Gods and Devils which appropriately end in clear moral lessons.
The most interesting choice in the comic is the use of quotes from a variety of comics creators, philosophers, and religious figures uttered from the perspective of the Watcher. McDonnell cites everyone from Henry David Thoreau to Carl Jung and Eckhart Tolle. Tolle in particular is perhaps the origin of many of the religious allusions in the story, blending existential questions with a divine sense of purpose and moral clarity. McDonnell is able to seamlessly move between 60s superhero dialogue and new age proverbs in a way that again straddles the line between adulthood and childhood.
In posing these questions and quotes to a child’s heroes, McDonnell is trying to articulate what exactly the morals, character and expectations of superheroes are, and how a child might understand their emotions and conflicts. The story never feels like it’s speaking down to its audience, nor is it over indulging in intellectual jargon. Rather, there is a loving approach here of trying to bring out the essence of what the life and death battles of the universe in a Marvel comic might mean in a more human way. If Galactus makes us feel like the world is ending, what is that feeling in service too?
Dr. Doom and Reed Richards appropriately take center stage here. While the Watcher is our guide, he serves more as the audience’s point of view. Reed and Doom, on the other hand, progress through the comic book reading experience and use the knowledge of the reader to inform their choices. Reed ultimately comes to terms with his own guilt over the accident that created the Fantastic Four in the first place, and Doom is forced to reconcile with the insecurities that drive him. The two characters function as the embodiment of both our knowledge and power in service to negativity and positivity. They are two sides of the same coin.
The confrontations between Reed and Doom allow for some fun interactions. Reed is allowed to travel the comics universe and experience everything from Romance Comics covers to a classic Marvel No-Prize. In these travels, there is an air of nostalgia for how reading Marvel comics used to feel, with careful attention to the details of comics ads and the often overly heavy Stan Lee-style narration. There is both humor and a touching representation of how our humanity is played out between aliens, superheroes and cosmic entities.
McDonnell’s The Super Hero’s Journey is another win for the MarvelArts line. It takes a unique artistic approach to gently guide us through the experience of being a comic book fan, while at the same time pushing the characters to confront the human flaws and aspirations that created them in the first place. The repurposing and blending of classic art with McDonnell’s own style makes for some of the most unique art in a Marvel comic, and the philosophical underpinning of the story and the Watcher’s perspective drive home the larger than life questions that drive us to create heroes and villains in the first place.
Verdict: BUY
Saturday, October 28, 2023
Spooky Saturday with EC Comics horror !
For a guy who says he is trying to finishing up his old posts I am sure starting a lot of new ones lately. But the thing is that I was just working on my tribute post to 36C - 23 - 26 page 3 girl Corinne Russell Yesterday and as I kept adding more stuff about the iconic horror magazines Tales From The Crypt, The Vault Of Horror, The Haunt Of Fear and other EC Comics publications like Mad to the bonus section I thought it would be a waste to put it all there instead of doing a full blown EC Comics post.
You see, when I started the latest two GHOST RIDER posts as kind of an introduction for Halloween one of the reasons why I didn't make an EC Comics post was that I thought I did not have enough material for it.
Daredevil: Born Again ditches head writers and directors as Marvel rethinks show
Writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman were quietly let go after production on the series halted due to the writers' strike.
Staying true to its title, Daredevil: Born Again will soon be reborn.
The Marvel series, set to continue the adventures of Charlie Cox as blind superhero Matt Murdock, is getting a complete overhaul, EW has confirmed. The Hollywood Reporter was the first to report the news that the studio parted ways with head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman.
The 18-episode series paused production in June due to the writers' strike, giving executives — including Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige — time to review the footage. After deciding that the show was not working, the studio is now looking for new writers and directors for the project. Some elements of the original series will be kept, with Corman and Ord credited as executive producers, but Daredevil: Born Again is ultimately heading in a new creative direction.
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According to the report, Corman and Ord's version of the series resembled a procedural rather than the bloody and action-packed version of Daredevil that first existed on Netflix before moving to Disney+. Cox reportedly didn't don his Daredevil costume until the fourth episode of the reboot.
The situation has also inspired bigger changes at Marvel Television. Daredevil: Born Again is far from the first troubled production for the studio: Moon Knight, She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, and Secret Invasion went through major revamps of their own, including head writer swaps. Going forward, Marvel plans to follow a more traditional TV production process, including hiring showrunners who will write pilots and show bibles. The studio also expressed a desire to veer away from limited series and towards multi-season serialized TV.
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- Days ago = 3054 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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