moreMoore
by Frank Santoro
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Hey everybody. Frank Santoro here. I’m still in “pitch mode'”after last week’s awesome convention. So, my post this week is another episode in my obsessive quest to understand mid ’80s independent comics. As usual, I ain’t got nothin’ much to say. Just riffing. Check this comic out if you see it around.
cover
Upshot Graphics, 1986. “A division of Fantagraphics,” it reads on the indicia.(Anyone remember the story with Upshot? Cuz I forget.) It’s called Flesh and Bones. Basically another Dalgoda vehicle. Jan Strnad. Good writer. Did some work with Kevin Nowlan that I like. Dennis Fujitake’s art on the lead story, Dalgoda, is solid, if a little stilted. A little too Moebius for me. But with none of the real drawing chops of Moebius. Anyways. Flesh and Bones was a book that re-presented Dalgoda and also had back up stories. Very good back-up stories.
Dalgoda art
I’ve seen this book in the bins for years but I spaced on who actually did the back up story. Well, it was Alan Moore. A reprint from a black and white magazine called Warrior from 1983. The story is called the BoJeffries Saga. For this version, it’s been shrunk and colored. A little hard to read at first. But once I got settled it played out like a pleasant little British comedy. You know. That wacky British humor that is sort of really subtle and eccentric at the same time? Yah. Great story. The art is like a leftover ’70s hodgepodge. Not bad. Steven Parkhouse. Cool image on the back cover. Should have been the front cover. I guess Dalgoda had to get top billing.
Moore’s story is about a rent collector. I could sort of read into this story from ’83 and imagine what Moore would go on to do. Basically, I would read into the rent collector character and imagine him to be Rorschach. What if Rorschach was sent around to collect the rent? Hurm.
back cover
BoJeffries Saga
BoJeffries Saga
This is that funny moment in 1986 when there was a sort of “Comics Renaissance” gaining critical mass. Alan Moore was part of that. So was Fantagraphics. And so was Heidi MacDonald.
Look at the article Heidi wrote back when there was no internet. It was a two-page article in this issue of Flesh and Bones. She’s asserting that Kirby, Tezuka, and Hergé are the “Gods of Comics.” Has her Pantheon of Comics Gods changed? I wonder…
Labels: Alan Moore, back issues, Heidi MacDonald, Kevin Nowlan, Moebius
I'd say her "Pantheon of Comics Gods" has been reduced to whoever directs the latest Harry Potter film and the memory of Dean Haspiel's abs. In other words, menopausal senility is now a major component of comics fandom. Just "riffing" though, sorry if I miss the point. Alan Moore worships snakes, I bet Heidi does too, harar.
he went on to become the guy known for dark and gritty "realistic" super hero comics.
so those early strictly British comics by Alan Moore like BoJeffries Saga used to be very weird to me when I'd find them. simply because they were Alan Moore doing Humor comics. they remind me of episodes of Red dwarf with the subtle and eccentric at the same time angle. He didn't seem to get back in touch with his humor comics side till the late 90's with some of the ABC line.
Yah, I got scared once reading an Alan Moore interview where he talked about communicating with a "4th Dimensional being".
Be nice to Heidi, please. She's awesome.
What Frank said, and @ Meyer: We don't tolerate personal attacks here. The next one will be deleted.
I share your love of 80s indy comics, esp. Eclipse, Kitchen Sink and Pacific stuff. In fact, I was just re-reading this very issue in prepping for my series on Alan Moore's short stories at TWC. I also agree about Jan Strnad. He did some stuff with Corben, too. Jeremy Brood and Last Voyage of Sinbad are both great!
I thought Morrison was the one who talked to 4th Dimensional Beings. What is up with British comic writers all trying to be Aleister Crowley? I have conversations with aliens from Dimension X but you don't see me bragging about it every chance I get.
Delgado's art is riffing pretty heavy on Moebius here but I can't say that I mind as much as you seem to, Frank. I hadn't seen BoJeffries laid out in a two page spread before. I like it. The most striking aspect of both comics for me is the coloring. I wish more comics today had colors as compelling and thought out as these examples.
As for Heidi, she's great, but seeing her in the back of a Fantagraphics imprint(?) makes me wonder why she feels the need to separate herself from the 'indie' scene now and say things like "Fort Thunder was a dead end". Is it merely out of some editorial duty to save face of an opinions column? Not having asked her myself I think it best not speculate any further than that.
As to the article itself: I was just a tot at the time so I assume this insight was much more striking then. However, for me it seems shortsighted. Certainly these men were incredibly influential to the medium, but I think she's guilty of placing them outside of their context. I don't think you can talk about Kirby without talking about Eisner considering he got his start in Eisner's studio. Likewise, I don't think you can abstract Herge's narrative and artistic contributions to comics away from Caniff's. Tezuka's a whole different ballgame entirely. I think the more interesting unifying thread between these three is their connection to WWII; with Herge and to a lesser extent Kirby both forecasting the war and their respective countries national narratives years in advance, and all three artist's role in shaping the face of post war comics (though here Kirby is something of a monkey wrench in this narrative's simplicity)
I'm psyched to read more about this particular strand of comics. A blog dedicated to the subject would be awesome.
So personal attacks on white male "conservative" cartoonists like Capp are OK though, right? I can't keep up. Maybe you should publish an official "Enemies List"?
And yeah, I shouldn't have insulted "Dino" like that; I'm sure his abs are still pretty fab *sigh* but he's no Dash Shaw or Craig Thompson!
I'm sure Heidi is a nice person, but I honestly think she's an embarrassment and detrimental to comics at large. Do we need more breathlessly uncritical reporting of sales numbers and Hollywood adaptations of the art form?
As for mid-80s comics, I agree it's an exceptionally interesting subject and one that is sadly neglected and undocumented. As someone who is probably a few years older than most of you, and who experienced the "era" (haha) as an eager adolescent comics nerd, I can't tell you how surreal it was to go into comics shops of the time. Much more variety than today, much less regimentation, you'd never know what would show up on the shelves.
Jeff, the Capp story was a funny anecdote. I sensed no ill will from it.
Yes, 80's comics shops were surreal.
I just found an issue of "The Realm" and totally forgot that it was Guy Davis's first work.
As far as "The Gods of Comics" go, nothing in the past 20 years has done anything to change my feelings on the primacy of these three cartoonists. In fact, it's a subject I'd much like to return to one of these days.
80s comics were a time of wildly divergent ideas of what was alternative. Comics from Fantagraphics routinely sold more than comics from DC do now. In fact, the Comics Journal's sales figures would place it squarely in the MIDDLE of the sales charts these days.
I know I will never live down (up) my infamous "Fort Thunder" line, but it is still misinterpreted from what my original intent was. However that topic, too, must wait for another time.
Jeffrey Meyer, I don't hide the fact that I'm as interested in "comics" as a cultural, sociological phenomenon as much as an esthetic one. (Kirby, Hergé and Tezuka were all huge cultural forces as well as great cartoonists.) If this decision makes globs of anger spittle fly from your mouth then I suggest you stop reading my blog.
Yes, 80's comics shops were a different thing altogether. At least the ones I was familiar with in suburban Chicago. Boxes of superhero back issues, new comics, alternative comics, plus weird cool stuff everywhere — from crazy Mark Marek stuff to imported James Bond comics. Those kinds of shops are few and far between now, back then it seemed standard.