I’ve never really noted him for weird, curvy architecture, but this is something from Howard Chaykin, as inked and colored by George Freeman, script by Peter B. Gillis, from Warp Special #1, 1983. It’s one of several items I picked up from our own Frank Santoro at MoCCA, also including Don McGregor’s & Marshall Rogers’ 1980 Detectives, Inc., which I confess mainly caught my attention because the Journal reposted that vintage review in which Kim Thompson absolutely destroyed it. I also bought a bunch of Wallace Wood reprints off of Dan… I think MoCCA’s something about the small press? These were all pretty small, I guess…
Here’s a more representative page, which still looks to me a bit closer to the kind of work Chaykin is doing now than the really dense style of American Flagg!, which would begin almost immediately after First Comics released this little item – Warp was among the publisher’s first releases, notable for being based on a series of science fiction plays originated in the early ’70s by Stuart B. Gordon & Bury St. Edmond (amazingly, the then-running Elaine Lee/Michael Wm. Kaluta Heavy Metal feature Starstruck was also based on a play), though it’s now thoroughly overshadowed by the publisher’s later works.
It’s a bit silly to compare Chaykin’s contributions — naturally, he’s going to put more ingenuity into his own showcase series as opposed to a special issue of a different title with the same publisher — but it’s still easy to see (and appreciate, sure) this particular work as an energetic opening up of some pedestrian scripting, while the Chaykin of Flagg!, in control of more elements of production, appears attuned to what I see in the likes of Detectives, Inc., a not entirely well-aged desire to pound some sophistication into the comics form via more elaborate page layouts and much, much more writing, just loads and loads of text. What’s enduring about Flagg! on a formal level is Chaykin’s aptitude for blending those impulses — words, panels, sound effects — into a unified presentation, so that what used to seem merely heavy became cacophonous, and then became representative of the world that was the site of its author’s satire. Warp was undoubtedly the appetizer before the main course, but it’s worthwhile seeing an altogether airier, perhaps collaboration-friendly style abounding.
And now, more.
(more…)
