…and I’m a year older.

My birthday was last weekend, so I thought it’d be fun to page through some comics from around the blessed date; ’81 was an odd and busy time in comics, days where Creepy, Heavy Metal and RAW shared space in the form as the Direct Market grew. One magazine-styled creature of the new distribution was Eclipse, a b&w comics periodical from the publisher of the same name, not yet three years from its release of Sabre, the Don McGregor/Paul Gulacy comics album famously targeted at comic book specialty retailers. Above you see the star of the show, from the July 1981 issue #2: Marshall Rogers, then fresh off a McGregor-written album of his own, the staggeringly portentous Detectives, Inc.: A Remembrance of Threatening Green.

Ah, those precision headlights and draftsman’s rays – like François Schuiten and Tsutomu Nihei, Rogers was exposed to architectural composition before he became professional in comics, and his inevitable cityscapes are the stillest and coldest of the group. This panel is apparently intended to contrast with a lonely desert vista at the top of its page, but Rogers’ hills and plants are so sharp and precise you’d think you could cut your finger on the page, causing “the strip” to register as less a response to the wilds than an explosion of organic growth. Which could just mean a cancer, but what control!

Rogers was in every issue of Eclipse, mostly (as above) via the Steve Englehart serial Coyote, though to my mind the same team seemed far more relaxed and effective in Slab, a self-contained piece from issue #1 initially written as a Superman/Creeper story for DC Comics Presents and revamped by Rogers into something else entirely, chock-full of gleaming sci-fi structures and oddball character designs (the Creeper becomes a talking cartoon bird, for instance), then re-scripted atop by Englehart when appropriate, tongue presumably in cheek.

Still, this speaks to the makeup of Eclipse, a self-positioned mainstream-underground bridge running through comics retailers, mixing Marvel/DC veterans with Trina Robbins and Harvey Pekar and mystery prose/Dick Tracy writer Max Allan Collins, everything very sedate and straightforward, the occasional appearance by the likes of Kaz notwithstanding – you could have told me half this stuff was drawn in 1975 and I’d have believed you. That’s not exactly a criticism, but it maybe speaks to the ease with which publisher Eclipse felt its way into the delicate market, certainly without a lot of money. The magazine ended with issue #8 in 1983 to convert into a color comic book, Eclipse Monthly.

Meanwhile, no less a well-financed comics entity than Marvel was releasing issue #6 (June 1981) of Epic Illustrated, a big fat color magazine squarely positioned as a reaction to Heavy Metal. An establishment response, but god damn if those early issues in particular didn’t throw themselves into the work, oozing with paints, seared with airbrushes, and occasionally teetering on the brink of comprehensibility. Granted, much of this particular issue is taken up by Ken Steacy’s adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s Life Hutch, one of those arch separations of copious words and illustrative pictures I mentally associate with Byron Preiss (maybe I should be thinking Jim Steranko), but even that seems of a restless piece with a five-page Rick Veitch epic — intended as a  double-sided foldout and reprinted as such in his 2007 Shiny Beasts collection — concerning the psychic fusion of a starship and a dude with hoses in his eyes forming a gigantic nude humanoid space weapon that has cosmic sex with a feminine Earth protector/science goddess and boils the flesh off corpulent galactic warmakers.

That’s not the melted face above, mind you; Mike Saenz was still a few years off from the digital inquiries of Shatter and Iron Man: Crash when he and writer Roy Kinnard (who’d scripted him Creepy that year too) did Flash Sport, a typical ‘guy controlled by awful people in a deadly game’ scenario unique for its video game subtext: two bratty kids putting Our Man through violent paces for laughs. An appropriate context for the computer-inclined Saenz, triumphantly depicting a bad little boy’s getting shot open all over the page at the story’s close. And then there’s Kultz, a veritable double-down by Stephen R. Bissette & Steve Perry in which the rowdy trash film-loving teen consumers at a futuristic mega-mall fall prey to a terrible film that feeds their energies back to them until they tear each other to pieces at the surreptitious behest of the store management. You might not want to take it as an allegory for the Epic Illustrated situation, but maybe it works as a nightmare of corporate control of underground and foreign energies obliterating the young and enthusiastic – a real hazard.

Yet when I look at these rackmates of 1981, it’s the Marvel magazine that seems hungry and dated and reckless – inspiration and desperation in the face of competition, while the smaller magazine shows prudence and care, that old craftsman’s quiet. Of course, they shared contributors: P. Craig Russell, Jim Starlin. They both afforded their talents ownership of their original works. They were both very traditional in the face of RAW – but their differences are fascinations of the pliable era. And anyway, reading magazines from when I was born breaks up the monotony of googling my name and gazing into mirrors.

Oh right, new comics:

Chloe: A new Eros Comix release? Sure, go to the top of the list. This is actually a reprint project, though, I think the third edition of a 2001 Xeric grant-winning book by the excellent Hans Rickheit (recently of The Squirrel Machine). “An earnestly rendered tale of a lonely teenage girl who falls in love with a hermitic dwarf. Erotically charged biological excursions and unrelinquished post-adolescent anguish.” You couldn’t ask for more. Preview; $10.95.

The Metabarons Vol. 4 (of 4): Aghora & the Last Metabaron: And now, some unfinished business. I’ve written a bunch on this 1992-2004 Alejandro Jodorowsky/Juan Giménez intergenerational pulp fusion saga, a spin-off of Jodorowsky’s work with Moebius on The Incal, so just know that this is the first time the concluding eighth French album is appearing in English, although this Humanoids Publishing softcover release actually collects the French vols. 7 & 8 in the style of the 2004-05 two-in-one softcovers Humanoids released as part of its ill-fated partnership with DC, chronicled by Tucker Stone and myself last year in a slim 18 parts. On the surface a gleaming, gushing, flesh-ripping tour of sci-fi combat, Jodorowsky’s firmer aim is to illustrate the transferal of psychic wounds and violent impulses from parents to children, embodied in images of jungle adventure and castle sieges and space wars and fictions of all kinds, the heroes becoming crueler and hollower and more emotionally barren, until there aren’t even names left to list; $19.95.

Whispers in the Walls #1 (of 6): This is also Humanoids; they’re back at releasing English translations to the Direct Market on their own, mostly bookshelf-ready stuff later this year like a complete edition of the Jodorowsky/Moebius series Madwoman of the Sacred Heart. However, they’re also putting out this comic book series collecting a cursed little girl story from Spanish filmmaker/screenwriter David Muñoz — best known for co-writing the 2001 Guillermo del Toro feature The Devil’s Backbone — working with artists Tirso Cons (lines) & Javi Montes (colors). I suspect this will cover three French albums, the newest of which is only being released this month. Non-English preview; $3.50.

Eden: A new 6″ x 6″ Drawn and Quarterly collection of color webcomics by Argentinian cartoonist Pablo “Kioskerman” Holmberg – wispy snatches of life on a medieval fantasy plane, grass blowing and hair swooshing, four panels per page. Samples; $16.95.

Indoor Voice: Also D&Q, a 5″ x 7 1/4″, 96-page showcase for Jillian Tamaki, artist of the swirling 2008 high school navigation Skim and a prolific illustrator. Included are short comics, drawings, collage, and other images. Samples; $19.95.

The John Stanley Library: Nancy Vol. 2: More Nancy, more Stanley, 152 pages in the Seth-designed style you know. Samples; $29.95.

Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Vol. 6: I think we can gauge the health of the Golden Age of Reprints by the steadiness of its Jesse Marsh releases, much like how the Roman official could judge the health of the Empire by the makeup of its coinage. I don’t know if that’s history, that was from an Alan Moore book, actually, but I assure you there are in fact six 200+ page Dark Horse hardcover collections of Jesse Marsh Tarzan comics in existence, which doesn’t seem real itself; $49.99.

Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer: Artist’s Edition: I’m a little confused here, in that I thought this third and most deluxe IDW collection of Stevens’ movie serial-inspired adventure thing was only to be sold direct to consumers, but it looks like Diamond has it marked for a price increase on its list this week and Midtown (from where I’m quoting the price) is due to get some copies in. It’s a 12″ x 17″ hardcover presentation of the work as reproduced directly from the original art, at the same size, blueline and paste-ups and all; $125.00.

Starstruck #12 (of 13): And IDW is also nearing the end of this very different, comic book-format recalibration of a onetime The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine lodger, among its various other incarnations. Elaine Lee, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Charles Vess, Lee Moyer. Note that October will bring an also-modified audio drama adaptation of the original Starstruck stage play, from the AudioComics Company; $3.99.

Biomega Vol. 3 (of 6): Featuring the sootier, doomier architectures of the aforementioned Tsutomu Nihei, with black leather motorcycle synthetic war against the zombies; $12.99.

Heavy Metal Sept. 2010: Still going, this one. Noteworthy for containing the third and final installment of Fluorescent Black, a duly pulsing future shock genetic modification serial from formidable artist Nathan Fox (of Marvel’s under-the-radar Dark Reign: Zodiac miniseries from last year), working with writer MF Wilson and colorist Jeromy Cox. An oversized collected edition will be released later this year. Preview; $6.95.

Nancy In Hell #1 (of 4): Given all the visually engorged multi-reference comics they’ve been putting out lately, I guess it’s inevitable Image would team up with frequent Warren Ellis collaborator and Moebius devotee Juan Jose Ryp, who’s recently transitioned into work with Marvel (two recent issues of Vengeance of the Moon Knight and an upcoming Punisher MAX special with Peter Milligan) in a somewhat pared down fashion. Here he’s colored by Fran Gamboa and scripted by El Torres for a pretty girl(s) vs./as demons project with its origins in the late ’90s Spanish comics scene, I do believe. Preview; $2.99.

Magnus, Robot Fighter #1: The second in Dark Horse’s line of revived Gold Key/Valiant series written by Jim Shooter, following Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom and preceding Turok, Son of Stone. Veteran artist Bill Reinhold brings a nice, chunky cartoon look to the table, and a vintage Russ Manning reprint thickens the page count to 56. Preview; $3.50.

Baltimore: The Plague Ships #1 (of 5): The first Mike Mignola-written comic in a little while not to be set in his Hellboy universe. Instead, it’s set in the world of Mignola’s and Christopher Golden’s prose novel Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. A chronicle of the vampire plague in WWI, scripted by both writers and drawn by B.P.R.D. and Witchfinder artist Ben Stenbeck; $3.50.

Hellboy: The Storm #2 (of 3): But Mignola writes this one alone. Duncan Fegredo draws; $3.50.

Thor: The Rage of Thor: One of writer Peter Milligan’s periodic connected one-offs set in the past life of the guy with the hammer and the upcoming movie, this time about a peaceable Thor moved again to violence. Art by Mico Suayan Preview; $3.99.

Marvel Universe Vs. the Punisher #1 (of 4): This does not appear to be part of the Marvel Zombies mini-line, in which the denizens of the Marvel Universe are presented as zombies, but it nonetheless concerns zombie-ish versions of an alternate Marvel being hunted down by the Punisher, as written by Marvel Zombies contributor Jonathan Maberry. The art is by the very good Goran Parlov, who is always worth a look. Preview; $3.99.

Deadpool #1000: I just know there’s an essay tucked away somewhere (possibly up my ass) on how the ubiquity of Marvel’s wildly popular self-aware psychopath mercenary character reflects the relentless auto-citation of shared superhero universes, funhouse mirror-style, flattering the insularity of genre mechanisms by specifically framing them as an extended in-joke, openly merc and admittedly mad and priced to move since, really, you must be mad too, or you wouldn’t have come here; it’s as loud ‘n proud as any Geoff Johns pinstripe fiction-suited sales pitch on the unparalleled quality of [INSERT STARRING CHARACTER], but so much more nattily attired in post-Liefeld corporate reclamation coached as deprecation – the joke’s on us, True Believer, and here’s your receipt. God, my ass feels great! This is a 104-page fake issue #1000 — ha ha, because there’s a lot of Deadpool comics, several this week in fact! — noteworthy for the participation of Peter Bagge, Michael Kupperman, Howard Chaykin, David Lapham and Dean Haspiel, among others. Preview; $4.99.

Batman: Odyssey #2 (of 6): All that can be said for sure is that this is the work of a man who knows with absolute certainty that nobody can stop him; $3.99.

Black Comix: African American Independent Comics, Art & Culture: Finally, your book-on-comics selection, an 11″ x 9″ Mark Batty Publisher release from Damian Duffy & John Jennings, showcasing more than 50 talents of the past decade over 176 pages, with an introduction by Keith Knight. Official site; $45.00.

Labels: Eclipse, Epic Illustrated, Ken Steacy, Marshall Rogers, Mike Saenz, Rick Veitch, Roy Kinnard, Stephen R. Bissette, Steve Englehart, Steve Perry, This Week in Comics