PEOPLE WITH ISSUES Episode 27

I'm guesting on the latest episode of People with Issues, discussing comics with Mr. McGroovy. Amongst the topics are Blade Runner by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson, Fantastic Four Pocket Book and Hulk Pocket book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Hate by Peter Bagge, Justice League by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, Spleenal by Nigel Auchterlounie, and Star Wars Weekly! Have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QezxzLHCZ8k

THAT COMIC SMELL: A Fantastic 4 Christmas Do!

The latest episode is online now.

From the website:

"HO HO HO! Merry Christmas!
We are celebrating the only way we know how. By chatting about comics. Not just any comics though. As it’s the festive season, we just wanted to have a little fun and what can be more fun that diving into Marvel’s first family, The Fantastic Four!!
So come join in on our Christmas Do. You’re very welcome to.
We chat about where we came across them, our different appreciations for different runs, Tom has a secret to tell and Nando is given an unanswerable question.
This and all the usual comics chat on…
That Comic Smell!
Follow us on Twitter & Instagram @thatcomicsmell
Get us on…
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and most places you find podcasts.
Don’t forget to Like, Share, Subscribe, Rate & Review.
Most importantly though… Read More Comics!
Thanks again for listening and supporting the podcast
Merry Christmas and Very Happy New Year to you all."

THAT COMIC SMELL: Comics aimed at children

The new episode is online now.

From the web:

"On this brand new episode of That Comic Smell we are still coming to you remotely. This time we just get right into it. We did have a chat beforehand but that was just between us about something coming very soon… But you’ll have to wait to see what it is.
In this we tackle “Comics aimed at Children”, we didn’t go massively in depth but just touched some of our favourites, and had a brief chat about what classes as all ages and should the libraries review how the classify comics ages.

This and all the usual comics chat on…

That Comic Smell!

Follow us on Twitter & Instagram @thatcomicsmell
Get us on…
Soundcloud: tinyurl.com/y8vzeh3c
Spotify: tinyurl.com/y2qtu2cs
YouTube: tinyurl.com/yajnxcno
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/hwbqxab
Podbean: tinyurl.com/yxvecykj
and most places you find podcasts.

Adventure Time (Various, Pendleton Ward)
Animaniacs
Asterix (Albert Uderzo, René Goscinny, Jean-Yves Ferri, Didier Conrad)
Babysitters Club (Raina Telgemeier, Gale Galligan)
Batman: Gotham Adventures (Ty Templeton, Rick Burchett, Terry Beatty)
Be Prepared (Vera Brosgol)
Beano
Beezer
Bone (Jeff Smith)
Broons and Oor Wullie
Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
Count Duckula
Crunch
Dandy
Dear Justice League (Michael Northrop, Gustavo Duarte)
Dick Tracy (Chester Gould)
Dino Riders
Disneytime
Dragonball (Akira Toriyama)
Fantastic Four (Stan Lee, Jack Kirby)
Fantasy Sports No.1 (Sam Bosma)
Fast Forward (Various)
Franklin Richards: Not-So-Secret Invasion (Chris Eliopoulos, Marc Sumerak)
He-man
Hilda (Luke Pearson)
Hoot
Jungle Book (Gil Kane, Mary Jo Duffy, Craig Russel)
Little Heroes Anthology (Various)
Lookin (Various)
Looney Tunes
Lucky Luke (René Goscinny, Morris)
Mini Marvels (Chris Giarrusso)
Nutty
Panini Pocket Books (Marvel)
Peanuts (Charles Schultz)
Pokemon
Popeye (IDW Reprint)
Roland Rat Annuals
Science Comics: Dogs (Andy Hirsch)
Simpsons
Sisters (Raina Telgemeier)
Smile (Raina Telgemeier)
Space Ghost (Alex Toth)
Spike
Spirou & Fantasio (Various)
Thundercats
Tin Tin (Hergé)
Topper
Transformers
Visionaries
Wild Lives (Claire Hubbard)
World of Quest (Jason t. Kruse)
X-men Adventures"

THAT COMIC SMELL GUEST POST: Fernando Pons

For a few weeks, I've been running a series of guest posts from my friends over at That Comic Smell podcast. The pieces have been any length, style, whatever. The only brief I gave was to write something about comics. This time around, it's Fernando Pons.

Happy 100th birthday Jack!

I didn’t like Jack Kirby’s art. There you have it, I said it. It’s out for everyone to read it. So you’re probably thinking that’s fair enough, I have my own opinion, but... probably you don’t agree.

How could I dislike Jack Kirby? The creator/co-creator of Captain America, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, the Avengers, the X-Men, the Inhumans, Galactus, Doctor Doom, Silver Surfer, Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos, the New Gods, Mister Miracle, Forever People, Darkseid, Kamandi, OMAC, The Demon, The Eternals, Machine Man, Devil Dinosaur...

Well, if you have few minutes and you aren’t bored so far, I’ll explain why.

Let’s go back in time, Spain 1980. Not much going on in entertainment for a 6 year old: There were only 2 TV channels, no computers, no videogames and I lived in a small town in an island in the Mediterranean Sea.

As one of many modest working family households, we didn’t have much money, but comics and magazines were cheap are ready available at any newsagent.

T.B.O. , Tio Vivo, Mortadelo, Zipi Zape, Hazañas Bélicas, Capitán Trueno, Don Miki..., all of them created in Spain by Spanish artists and writers, with the exception of Don Miki (the Spanish equivalent to the Italian magazine Topolino), a magazine reproducing the Disney comics by Carl Barks, Floyd Gottfredson, Romano Scarpa and Giorgio Cavazzano, amongst others.

Like many other kids of my generation, I learnt to read with comics. My parents encouraged me to read more, and one of my aunties, another comic reader, used to lend me many of her magazines, in particular Hazañas Bélicas, a black and white war comic by Boixcar.

Tintin and Asterix followed fairly soon. Many birthday and Christmas presents were hardback editions of these 2 European comic giants.

So there you are, no superheroes, no American comics (with the exception of the stories from Don Miki), no Kirby.

Let’s move forward to 1985: La Patrulla-X #8 (Containing Uncanny X-Men 146 & 147), my first superhero comic.

I had heard of Superman, Spider-man, la Masa (Hulk)...thanks to the TV series and the cinema, but not Patrulla-X. Heroes born with special abilities, mutants hated by the people they are trying to protect. It absolutely blew my mind. The art was by Dave Cockrum and Josef Rubinstein. The writer was Chris Claremont. That was the first series I started to collect.

John Byrne’s Fantastic Four, Romita JR and Layton’s Iron Man, Mike Zeck’s Captain America and Walter Simonson’s Mighty Thor followed my favourite mutants. Then I discovered Arthur Adams in the X-family annuals and Longshot, and eventually, I managed to read Frank Miller’s Daredevil. I also tried some DC superheroes: The Teen Titans by Wolfman and Perez, Batman and the Outsiders by Mike W. Barr, Jim Aparo and Alan Davis.

The art of all these comics was amazing. I was mesmerised. I started to follow the artists. John Byrne was my favourite. I started to collect his Alpha Flight too. Then I managed to get Byrne’s stint in Captain America and his Uncanny X-men comics, when Classic X-Men was eventually published. He was, and still is, one of my favourite artists.

The more superhero comics I read, the more I wanted to know about them. So I started to find out about the origins of all these series. Stan Lee was introducing all the Marvel titles in Spain (“Stan Lee presenta: “), so his name was familiar. The magazines said that Stan Lee created practically all the Marvel comics, with the help of someone called Jack Kirby and another guy called Steve Ditko, but their names were not introducing any titles on any magazines.

Very occasionally, the Marvel magazines would publish an article about Kirby. If you were lucky, you would get 1 or 2 illustrations, or perhaps a cover and that would be all the art you would see. I was used to the fine art of the likes of John Byrne, Alan Davis, George Perez, Arthur Adams, Walter Simonson, Frank Miller...I didn’t like the defiant-gravity bodies, the massive fists, the big rectangular fingers or the box-like faces of this Kirby guy. His art wasn’t refined and his figures weren’t svelte.

“Okay, he was the first artist to draw them, but things are different now and the artists I like are better”, I was telling to myself.

Eventually, Comics Forum (publisher of Marvel Comics in Spain at that time), started to publish classics Marvel stories, which had been edited or mutilated by previous publishers, or never seen before in Spain. The Kree-Skrull war (Thomas & Neal Adams) or the Death of Gwen Stacy (Conway, Kane and Romita) were some of these stories.

Then, one day in one of these magazines (Marvel Héroes #35) I found this story written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby. The tale was from Super Villain Classics #1, which in turn, it was reprinted material from Fantastic Four #49, Thor # 160, 162, 167 and 169. The story told the origin of Galactus. This was the comic that made me realise how good Kirby was. The energy effects (later I found out it was called Kirby Krackle, in honour to his creator), the shinning armours, the outlandish machinery, the mythologically influenced aesthetics, the larger than live characters, the fantastic locations...

With time, my appreciation for Kirby and his work has been growing exponentially. I realised how much John Byrne’s Fantastic Four was inspired by Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Looking at Walter Simonson's art, I realised how much influence Kirby had in his art. I also appreciated how much Miller’s heavy and older Dark Knight had inherited from Kirby. Jim Steranko was heavily influenced by Kirby’s art, so was Keith Giffen too, at his stint in The Defenders during the late 70's. More modern artists have been influenced by Kirby too, for example: Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon), Jose Ladronn (Hip Flask and Elephantmen), Tom Scioli (G0dland) or Fabian Rangel (Space Riders).

And many more, but we don’t have time to go over all of them.

Kirby was a force of nature, a unique artist, a comic-book genius. The quality of his workload was outstanding. The volume of work he produced is incredible; even now we still find some unused cover, poster, pages... He wasn’t a realist, but his figures exuded energy and drama. He knew how to project the emotion from the page to the reader. He was the master of the splash page. He knew how to draw the reader’s eyes to the character. His big scenes did not lack detail, not even on the backgrounds.

As a writer, Kirby brought a mix of slang, science fiction, myth and biblical references to the reader. Perhaps at the time, this cultural cocktail was too heavy for the readers, but his vision has lasted. Writers like Jim Starlin (Dreadstar) and Grant Morrison, amongst others, have been influenced by Jack Kirby’s storytelling.

All these feats didn’t make Kirby a prima donna. Fellow artists who knew him say he was an honest hard working guy, very down to earth, very respectful to others artists and very respected by fellow artists.

So, if you are interested in comics, especially superhero comics, regardless of your age, go and check this Kirby guy, believe me when I say, you won’t be disappointed.

Happy 100th Birthday Jack Kirby!

Stan is the Man, but you were, are and will always be the King.

You can listen to That Comic Smell podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud and YouTube.

SUPER-HEROES TALK PPT

An enjoyable job I decided to do recently was give a talk to a book group of 8-11 year olds on the subject of super-heroes. I like to use the wider interest in the movies to lead them back to the comics.

I thought I'd post the powerpoint I used. It might be helpful to anyone out there wanting to do a similar thing.

They're in alphabetical order. The text was also cut back to bullet words when I gave the talk.

Fortuitously, the first one up - Ant-Man - was also the most recent. The kids were on board right away. The format is comic image on the left; movie image on the right.

The Avengers covered a lot of the Marvel heroes they had heard of. Another thing I wanted to get across to them was how old these characters are. Between 50 - 80 odd years. Long enough for adults; an unthinkable eternity for these youngsters.

Why 'Batman: Year One'? The comics images were chosen by the criteria that they were titles that were available to loan in the library.

The movie images were chosen in the main to be the most recent iteration of the characters. I told the group I hadn't seen the most recent Fantastic Four movie. 'It's not good' opined one kid. Oh dear.

I like the similarity between the Flash comic and TV show images here. And I couldn't resist putting that groan-worthy comment at the end.

I made sure to point out the distinction of The Incredibles not being from a comic.
One of the children at this point put his hand up to tell me that he had a DVD of The Incredibles and the first disc was very good but the second was boring. It just has people talking on it. I enjoyed that interjection.

During discussion of Spider-Man, the laptop shut down altogether for an update. Thank you, Microsoft.
It allowed me to steal more time with the group and answer their questions though.

Always got to reference the mountains of cash a few comics like the first Superman appearance sell for. It gets an 'oo' and an 'ah' from the adults too.

The photo above (chosen for its dramatic qualities) caused some immediate intrigue, and the question 'Wait, has Wonder Woman been in a movie?'
I mentioned the possible connection between the lie detector machine and Wonder Woman's lasso of truth.

X-Men were the last characters chosen by me, then I wanted to give the kids a chance to mention their favourites with this:

Many suggestions followed, including Firestorm, Doctor Who and Jedi Knights. Some lateral thinking there. Why not? They have super-powers.

An enjoyable talk for me, and the group were very engaged and appeared to like it.

COURTING CONTROVERSY – COMIC CREATORS AND ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY

This is the seventh in a series of guest posts I'm running over the summer. I asked folk to write on any topic at any length - as long as it's comics related. Next up is Gary Smith...

  

I imagine that most comic fans will have an opinion about John Byrne, but the nature of this view will probably be heavily influenced by when readers were first exposed to his work. For fans who were first exposed to his work in the 1970s, he will perhaps be  best remembered as the young hot shot artist who cut his teeth on Iron Fist and helped take the X-Men to new heights of popularity. For fans who began reading in the 80s he may be forever linked with the Fantastic Four or his revamp of the Superman franchise. For fans in the 1990s it will perhaps be his run on She-Hulk or the launch of his Next Men title. Despite this huge catalogue of well received work in the comics industry, it's likely that fans introduced to John Byrne after the year 2000 will associate him less with his creative output and more with the forthright views he expresses through his website and forum, regularly giving his honest opinion on characters, creators and developments within the world of comics. From the controversy that surrounded his comments on Jessica Alba's casting as Sue Storm to the coining of the term Byrne-stealing (essentially arguing that reading a book and putting it back on the stands without purchasing it amounted to theft), in recent years there have been no shortage of newsworthy quotes arising from Byrne's use of social media.

My thoughts drifted to John Byrne after reading the recent Marvel title, All New X-Factor issue 7. In it, two characters have a discussion about whether a creator should be separated from their work, and whether it is justifiable to read a book - and therefore implicitly support - an author that may have questionable views. The character of Quicksilver is outraged that his team-mate, Danger, is reading a novel by Scott Dakei, a prominent anti mutant campaigner. Danger, for her part, argues that the content of the novel have nothing to do with this issue, and that the author's personal politics do not factor into the novel at all. This debate struck a chord with me because while John Byrne is perhaps the most prominent example, comic fans now enjoy a level of unprecedented access to creators, engaging with them in a way that would have been unthinkable even ten years ago.

1960s Marvel was built on the illusion that it was one big, happy community. Creators were given nicknames, letters pages were answered in a more informal manner; even caption boxes and editors' notes were written in a jocular style. Yet for all this informality, fans at the time were unlikely to know where the creators stood on popular issues (aside from generic representations of the national mood, such as the fear of communism). As the new wave of Marvel writers emerged in the 1970s, including Steve Gerber and Steve Englehart, it was apparent that many of them were politically to the left of their older colleagues, but unless a reader ventured into the world of the fan press it is unlikely that they would have been able to definitively pinpoint their views. 

In the modern comic community, with the majority of creators having a presence on Facebook and Twitter, as well as their own Blogs or web sites, it's relatively easy for fans to work out just where their favourite creators stand on certain issues. Countless creators are only too keen to tweet their thoughts on every conceivable subject, from the serious to the mundane. The question is whether any thoughts so expressed should have an impact on the way that their work is perceived.

In a perfect world the answer would be no. As long as the offensive opinions aren't reflected in their work then there should be no reason not to buy it, and readers should be able to enjoy the work on its own merits. In practice, though, this can sometimes be harder to do. Personally, I have been somewhat surprised by the number of people I have recently seen on Facebook vowing to remove from their friend list anyone that they know to have voted for UKIP in the recent elections. To many people, casting a vote in this way, despite being people exercising their democratic right to vote for a party of their choosing, appears to be so horrific that it outweighs every favourable quality those individuals may possess.

Alongside John Byrne, Dave Sim is another creator who became as famous for his outspoken views as he was for his creative output - perhaps even more so. His essays in each issue of Cerebus highlighted his views on a variety of subjects, with many relating to his views on woman. Courting much controversy, Cerebus, and much of Sim's work, is viewed by many as a platform for him to express his worldview. That raises an interesting point. Sim is undoubtedly a talented creator, yet many readers left Cerebus before the end of its run, growing weary of the increasingly specific direction that Sim's views were taking the title down. Let's imagine that Sim stuns the comic world by agreeing to work on a mainstream superhero - say, Green Arrow. Should it matter that he has strong opinions that may be objectionable to some? If someone admires him as a creator but despises his politics, is there any reason for them to boycott a run that is unlikely to feature as distinct an authorial voice?

There are no easy answers to this topic and I can fully understand why some readers may be so put off by a creator's behaviour that they may boycott their work, but what advantage is gained in doing so? If the creator hasn't advocated anything illegal or morally dubious, is this still enough to transform the way their work is perceived?

For me, much of it comes down to admiration. I want the creators that I admire to also be people that I can admire, ones that share my views and act in a way that I think is appropriate. Sadly, this isn't always the case, but as I grow older I'm increasingly accepting of the fact that life is made up of all sorts of people, with a huge variety of views. If a creator produces fantastic work then perhaps that is enough. If they're also what I would consider a 'decent' person, then that's even better. Or if I really want to preserve my enjoyment of my favourite creators perhaps I should refrain from social media and recapture some of that mystique that creators had to earlier generations of fans. Sometimes, it must be said, ignorance really is bliss.