A Cardibles Market?

Yesterday, Vantage: Inhouse Productions put out a press release announcing a new comics initative they're calling Cardibles. They're basically trading cards with a QR code that links to a digital download of the full comic. I am all for experimenting with different forms and formats, and I genuinely hope they see success (however they define it) with these cardibles, but I do have some questions.

The card sets are being priced at one dollar apiece; do the comics cost more on top of that or are they free?

Do you need the card (or, more to the point, the QR code on the back) to get to the comic, or is it just a URL?

How does one obtain the cards beyond the initial crowd-funding that the press release mentions? Comic shops? Mass market retail?

Now it definitely sounds like they're working out some of the details and that's why they're not mentioned in the press release, and that's fine. But I'm having trouble trying to figure out possible answers that wouldn't be problematic. Admittedly, I'm not some genius businessman who has all the answers, and I certainly don't know any more about their intentions beyond what's in that press release, but here are some of the hurdles I'm seeing... Unless they've also developed a stand-alone app for their comics (which seems unlikely, given that's typically the type of thing you would hype up in a press release like this) the QR code is likely just a link to a PDF or CBZ. Maybe an online viewer like Issuu or something. Which means that the card's only value is in that collectibility angle, since once someone has the link, they can share it with anyone else online. Except audiences, on the whole, don't collect these types of cards. Cards they collect tend to either be on areas that are already massively popular (e.g. baseball cards) or have a variable level of scarcity to them (e.g. any collectible card game where some cards are vastly more rare than others and have a value internal to the gameplay itself). Remember how many publishers tried producing trading cards based on their properties in the '90s, and how they're pretty much all now worth less than the fiberboard they're printed on? The collectibility of V:IP's cards here isn't likely to happen. Now, if the QR code links to a comic and you have to pay something more for that comic, the card has even less value. Because, as a reader, your cost of the comic would go up if you bought the card, so why not do a bit of searching online to look for someone else who's just posted the link somewhere? Then your digital comic would cost a dollar less. Further, how will things be set up so that a reader who buys the comic on their phone can read it from their laptop? Or when they get a new phone? You'd need some kind of account login system to keep track of what users have gotten which issues, so they don't have to repurchase it on each device they own. Doable, to be sure, but it does layer on some additional complexity in development, and it puts additional friction between the reader and the product thus decreasing the likelihood of repeat (or, for that matter, even initial) business. Distribution strikes me as pretty critical here. Any sort of mailing option is almost a no-go because, at a dollar a set, your shipping costs would almost certainly be more than you were paying for the set of cards to begin with. Mass market retail also seems unlikely; unless V:IP literally gives the cards to retailers for free, I don't see how a retailer would be able to make a decent enough profit from them to make them worthwhile. Comic shops might be an option, but then you're (indirectly) dealing with thousands of independant shops who might or might not stock the cards on whatever the whims of the shop owner are that month. Also, if their target audience is kids -- as the press release claims -- comic shops are not where that target audience goes! A dollar is an excellent price point for kids, but the distribution method here to get these cards in front of kids strikes me as critical. I can see this being a clever way for creators to sell digital comics at conventions. There would be considerably less printing (and hauling around of printed material!) than if they made print copies of their work; it would still give con-goers something tangible to walk away with -- maybe even getting the card signed by the creator; the lower price point might be easier for con-giers to act on, potentially leading to more sales... I can't say it woul 100% work in this way, but I can see the possibilities with it. But I'm not seeing as many possibilities with what V:IP has relayed thus far. Again, I clearly don't know all the details on how V:IP will be rolling these out. That's where most of my questions came from after all! I absolutely wish them to succeed with this endeavor, as I hope everyone trying to make a living in comics can succeed. (Well, unless you're a bigoted asshole using comics to promote hate; those people should fail in every way possible.) I will be the first to admit that I've seen people propose comic related businesses that I could not see lasting more than a year or two but who are going strong a decade-plus later, so I am by far not some master seer of comic business acumen. But I'm looking at this project and have a number of what-I-think-are-significant questions that don't strike me as having any good answers. For now, though, I guess we wait and see what happens with these.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

A Small Gesture

I recall reading at some point several years ago, someone was asking John Byrne if he had a particular page or panel that he was especially proud of. His response was something along the lines of, "Yes, but nothing you're likely to know/recognize." He went on to explain that while the big splash pages and great heroic shots are cool, the stuff that he tended to be proud of were just random panels in which he drew a hand really well. Or an eye. Or a fold of clothing. The small, subtleties that perfectly capture the nature of humanity he was trying to convey at that moment. One of the drawing challenges I had as a child (back when I still aspired to becoming a comic book artist) was hands. I had the proportions down well enough, but every time I drew hands, they always looked extremely stiff. Which was fine if I was trying to make a closed fist, but my drawings of open hands looked awkward. But one day, as I was reading Avengers #242, there was a panel that caught my attention...

(Pencil breakdowns by Al Milgrom, finishes by Joe Rubinstein and Brett Breeding.) Honestly, it's not all that great of an illustration. Especially in isolation like this. But for some reason, Vision's left hand caught my attention. First, it has a fairly natural feel to it. The fingers are relaxed and posed in a fairly neutral position. It's not drawn like a mitten with dividers between the fingers, much as I had been doing. Each finger is curled in its own manner and maintains its own integrity. Second, the shadow on the palm and pinkie finger was, to my young mind, a novel -- almost genius -- approach. Of course that part of the hand would be in shadow, but the solid black eliminates the details that A) just confuses the visual at that size, and B) is a hell of a lot easier to draw since you're shortcutting your way out of having to portray those details! (Which probably isn't the best mental approach to drawing, but I was a kid and looking to make better-looking art quickly!) I did get much better at hands because of that panel. Seeing how the fingers all curled slightly differently from one another proved to be something of a revelation for me, and my hand drawings improved substantially. (Although never good enough to be a regular comic book artist, but that's neither here nor there!) But just from some random panel almost in the background of a superhero story that's probably better remembered as launching the Avengers into the original Secret Wars!

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Nazi X

Given downward trend (or maybe plummet might be a better word) of X/Twitter to a cesspool of right-wing hatred, a lot of people have brought up this idea that Nazis have always been bad, and we literally fought a war to stop them, and we should always fight against hatred like that, and so on. The general message being that America has always hated Nazis and Nazism, and that we would never tolerate their shit. Which is a great sentiment but it's not really accurate. Let me state in no uncertain terms: Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are fucking assholes. Their hatred is a pestilence on humanity. Every single one of them can fuck right off. The part that's inaccurate is America's tolerance for Nazis.

Comic fans like to point to Captain America punching Hitler on the jaw on the cover of Captain America Comics #1. Or Daredevil and his companions battling Hitler on the cover of Daredevil Comics #1. Both of which pre-date the attack on Pearl Harbor by several months. But that's the thing: Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, but it's a war that had been going on for YEARS before the US became officially involved. World War II officially started in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland! Germany annexed Austria in 1938! The Nuremberg Laws that officially sanctioned the murdering of Jews in Germany was passed in 1935! Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and became it's Führer in 1934! He wrote Mein Kampf in 1925! The Nazi party was actually formed in 1920! Granted, news moved a bit slower back then, and you could debate at precisely what point it would've made the most sense to act, but my point is that America tolerated YEARS of Nazism before taking a formal stand. What made these comics visually advocating the punching of Hitler significant is precisely because it was not yet US policy. Yes, Jack Kirby absolutely wanted to go over and kill Hitler. As did Charles Biro. And there were indeed like-minded people who saw those comics and agreed with the sentiment. But it wasn't a universal one. There's a famous anecdote about the Simon & Kirby offices receiving death threats after Captain America Comics #1 hit the stands, and that New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia personally promised police protection to the studio. But that was only after Simon & Kirby received a bunch of hate mail, and Kirby himself stormed down from the studio to take on group of Nazi sympathizers who were threatening him from the lobby. (They had run away before Kirby made it down to the first floor.) In 1941, nine years before his first book was published, Dr. Seuss was a political cartoonist for PM, a New York newspaper. Many of his cartoons poked fun at the "America First" crowd generally and those who advocated for an isolationist approach to Hitler. But these weren't just vague ideas that he thought someone might hold, these were ideas championed by specific individuals with media platforms, and Seuss called them out by name: pilot Charles Lindbergh and popular radio host Father Charles Coughlin to name two. The United States didn't enter World War II because of Hitler. We entered World War II because we were bombed by Japan. We wanted revenge on Japan first and foremost. That Germany and Japan were allies meant that Germany was the US enemy by proxy. We sent soldiers to Germany but we dropped atomic bombs on Japan. Unnecessary atomic bombs. We rounded up and put Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps, but left white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers roam free. We were in World War II for revenge against the Japanese. Let me reiterate. Nazis are bad. If you're advocating the death of an entire group of people because of their skin color or religion, you absolutely deserve to be punched in the face. But saying that America has always hated Nazis and what we're seeing recently is somehow new simply is not true. While a lot of people have hated Nazis for a long time, a lot of other people thought it was better to deal with Nazis by looking the other way. Which is why we still have to hit them in the face.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

My ChatGPT Bio

Taking a cue from Ken Eppstein, I asked ChatGPT to write a bio for me. Here's what it wrote [with some additional commentary from me].

Sean Kleefeld is a creative force and visionary in the world of comics and graphic arts. [Debatable to say the least but, to be fair, bios do tend to be pretty laudatory.] Born and raised in a small town, Sean's passion for storytelling and art emerged at a young age. He was captivated by the vibrant pages of comic books, which fueled his desire to create his own narratives. As a child, Sean spent countless hours sketching characters and crafting imaginative tales in his sketchbooks. His dedication to honing his artistic skills led him to pursue formal education in the arts, earning a degree in Graphic Design from a renowned art school. [Technically true, I suppose, but it implies that my formal education had more of an illustrative bent. I went into graphic design, in part, because I was not that great of an illustrator.] After completing his education [I hope to never consider my education as "complete"], Sean dove headfirst into the world of comics, embracing every opportunity to showcase his talents. [Nope. After college, it would be sveral years before any comics-related work I did was seen by anyone besides me.] He contributed to various indie comic projects, illustrating and writing stories that resonated with readers, showcasing his unique style and narrative voice. [I've only contributed to indie comics projects financially via crowd-funding; I've never written or drawn any stories for them.] Over the years, Sean Kleefeld's work caught the attention of established comic publishers and editors. [I did hear once that my name was known around the Marvel offices back in the early 2000s, but I don't know how true that is.] His break came when he was offered the chance to collaborate on a high-profile graphic novel, which received critical acclaim and expanded his audience significantly. [I've never worked on any graphic novel in any capacity.] Beyond his artistic endeavors, Sean is also known for his passion for comics history and culture. [I'd like to think so at least.] He delves into the depths of the medium's past, uncovering forgotten gems and sharing his findings through thought-provoking articles and essays. [Some of the phrasing here sounds like it was directly lifted from something I wrote.] His expertise in comics history and analysis has earned him a reputation as a respected scholar and commentator within the comic community. [I honestly don't have a good sense of what my reputation in the industry is. Am I a "respected scholar and commentator"? I don't ask that in some kind of self-deprecating manner; knowing how other people perceive me is seriously one of my big blind spots.] As an advocate for diversity and inclusivity in the comic industry, Sean actively mentors aspiring artists and writers, encouraging them to explore their unique voices and perspectives. [Definitely not "mentors." "Encourages"? Maybe. "Praises"? Sure. "Mentors"? No.] He believes in the power of comics to inspire and influence positive change, and he consistently supports projects that champion underrepresented voices. [I do try to do this.] When Sean isn't immersed in the world of comics, he enjoys spending time in nature, finding inspiration in its beauty and serenity. [To be fair, ChatGPT did qualify things up front by saying their information only carried up through mid-2021. And up until a few years ago, before my accident, I did a lot of outdoor running. I did find it very serene and got a lot of inspiration from it, but it was as much the "running" as it was the "outdoor" aspect of things that I appreciated. Kind of a nuanced distinction that would be hard to nail down in a single sentence, so ChatGPT isn't quite on the mark here, but it's not exactly wrong either.] An avid traveler, he seeks new experiences and cultures that enrich his creative spirit. [My wife and I just had this discussion a week ago; we don't really consider ourselves avid travelers despite being called that by others. Most of our 'exotic' travel was just going to family weddings and such, and we just tacked on an extra day or two to make a vacation out of it. But I do find that what travel I do do is enriching because I'm able to experience new-to-me cultures.] Today, Sean Kleefeld continues to be a driving force in the comic industry, influencing and inspiring countless artists and readers alike. [Decidedly hyperbolic, but I suppose that comes with the bio format.] With a boundless imagination and an unwavering commitment to storytelling, he remains dedicated to pushing the boundaries of the medium, creating captivating narratives that leave a lasting impact on those who encounter his work. [On top of the Stan Lee levels of hyperbole, the strong implication here is that I actually create comics myself. I very much do not.]

No mention of my Webcomics book, which came out in 2020 and was nominated for an Eisner in 2021 -- both of which are from before ChatGPT's information cut-off. Even if you don't want to elaborate on specifics, "award nominated" seems like an almost mandatory phrase for a piece like this. There's also no mention of my actual career. I obviously talk a lot more about comics online than what I do for a living, but none of what I do in the comics industry brings in enough money to buy more than maybe one Starbucks drink every three or four weeks. That's a large portion of my jobs-that-pay-the-bills detailed on LinkedIn so argueably, there should be SOME mention of them. Most of my profile material on most websites focuses on comics, certainly, but I do try to regularly mention that it's not an industry I earn much from, even tangentially. Frankly, after my attempt to get ChatGPT to write a bio of Paul Sampliner earlier this year, I'm surprised it turned on this good. This is still leaps and bounds more accurate than what it wrote for Sampliner, even if parts of it are decidely wrong, despite everything still being kept vague. This isn't anything I would actually use anywhere (aside from blog post fodder like this) but it's probably more right than not, and might be something I would expect from someone writing a bio for me that might appear in a comic convention program or something.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Little Rock Nine Review

It's not uncommon these days for publishers to produce lines of graphic novels on historical subjects aimed at younger audiences. Most of these publishers aren't exactly known for their graphic novels, so the lines tend to be short-lived and cover the same handful of people/events. So when I heard Aladdin Paperbacks had tackled the Little Rock Nine back in 2008, I was intrigued. That was a subject I have not seen in comics form before, and I hadn't heard of of the publisher so I wanted to check it out. (I have since learned, by the way, that Capstone published a version last year and Gareth Stevens Publishing did a book in 2012 that has some comic book elements to it, although it doesn't appear to be a full comic from what I've seen. So Aladdin isn't along in covering this, but it's not a crowded market and, as far as I can tell, they got to it first.) The book, aside from a two-page prologue, all takes place during August and September 1957. The US Supreme Court had ruled school segregation was unconsitutional in 1954 and the integration plans that had been suggested had seen effectively no progress, with a litany of excuses why things had to be delayed. Arkansas' Governor Orval Faubus had been giving lip service towards integration but had been pretty clearly trying to keep it from happening at all. Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, pushed things forward in as many ways as she could, everything from meeting one-on-one with Faubus to plead for equality and helping to file lawsuits against the Little Rock School District. Despite mobs of white rioters literally beating anyone who supported inegration, Faubus illegally using the Akansas National Guard to keep Black students from entering the school, and reporters deliberately trying to stir up emotions for the sake of good television, nine Black students eventually did get in to Little Rock Central High School. That, however, isn't really the story being told here. I mean, yes, it does broadly cover those points but the narrative largely follows William McNally and Thomas Johnson, two local teens who are mostly witnessing things from the sidelines. William is the son of James McNally, who is one of the lawyers fighting in the courts on behalf of the NAACP, and Thomas is a Black kid who had been in one of the earlier attempts to get into school but was forceibly turned away. They meet at a local baseball game but, as it happens, Thomas' mother works in the McNally family home. (Although it's a little unclear precisely what her role is. The kids are too old to need a nanny, so she's just a maid, I suppose? We don't really see her do much of anything in the house.) Will and Thomas' friendship provokes a few other local kids, and Will manages to stand up for Thomas against them even when the two friends are fighting. Because of the threats and actual violence from when Thomas tried going to Central High, his father has forbid him from attempting it again and would prefer the whole family -- and indeed even James and his lawyer friends -- to stop stirring the pot and just let everything carry on as it had before. The book ends with both families watching a TV report on the so-called Little Rock Nine entering Central High for the first time. I have a few issues with the book. Ellen Lindner's illustrations are fine. I don't see anything particularly powerful in her layouts or her linework, but everything is clear and serviceable. I might've liked to have seen a little greater variety in people's faces, but there's still enough that I was never at a loss for quickly identifying who was who. My issues with the book are primarily in Marshall Poe's writing. Don't get me wrong; it's not bad, certainly. The dialogue seems natural enough and every character has their own voice, but the story's wrong. Not factually wrong (well, technically, there are some factual errors, but I'll get to those in a minute) but it's just conceptually wrong. I can understand wanting to avoid telling the story from one of the nine kids directly, and taking it from Bates' perspective could be tricky as well. But focusing on a white kid? That seems like the 100% wrong place to start. "Hey, Sean, I thought you said it focused on a Black kid too, though?" Yeah, Thomas is one of two protagonists here, but he's very much treated as the lesser of the two. He's not introduced until a fifth of the way through the book, his involvement in everything is considerably more passive, and during the riot, he is evidently beaten LESS than Will. (Thomas is only shown with a small bandage afterwards, while Will has a broken arm.) In fact, during the riot, the only "slur" used against him is "Negro," while Will is on the receiving end of being called a "n***** lover." Of the two, Will is readily shown to be the more heroic and, while Thomas is shown to be more than just a sidekick, the fact a story about racism focuses primarily on the white kid is not the right approach. There's other things that I didn't care for about the specifics of the story. Will's grandfather is quickly identified as very racist right up front, and provides a point of conflict between himself and both Will and James. And eventually Will does win a confrontational moment against his grandfather, but James does not. And given that they all live in the same house, this seems like a decidedly unresolved issue when the book closes. There's also no resolution between James and Thomas' father. James, as I said, was a lawyer fighting for the NAACP, but upon learning this, Thomas' father offers a "just leave things well enough alone" speech... but they're interrupted by the television and they don't pick up the conversation again. One other thing I disagree with here. I get that any historical story isn't going to be 100% accurate; if nothing else, we generally don't have precise record of anyone's dialogue. But I really wonder about the decision to make James McNally the lawyer for the NAACP here. Granted, there were several cases the NAACP were a part of surrounding this whole thing, but I can't find the name James McNally on any of them. In fact, the biggest Arkansas case -- one which is in fact depicted in the book and McNally is shown to be the lead attorney for -- the two lawyers on the actual case were Wiley A. Branton and Thurgood Marshall, both of whom were VERY prominent, VERY Black civil rights lawyers. Thurgood Frickin' Marshall! Making up an entirely new character to put in that spot and then not even making his associate Black means that both Will and James are given White Savior roles and it white-washes over the achievements that very real Black people had to work exceptionally hard for. In looking it up afterwards, I see that Poe is a somewhat noted historian and that would normally give me pause since that doesn't usually translate well into being a good writer of fiction. He does a much better job here than I would expect in that regards. But he comes to this story with a decidedly white man's perspective, and has at best a superficial grasp of the systematic racism that's wrapped up in this incident. I'm sure it was someone at Aladdin who approached him about writing this and EVEN IF there was some contractual reason he couldn't say, "maybe you should get a Black writer and/or artist to work on this," it's pretty evident he didn't seek out any input from any Black people on his own either. The book came out in 2008, so I hope that's a lesson he's learned since then. Aladdin seems to have been shuttered by Simon & Schuster, so I expect most bookstores won't have ready access to getting a copy. (It's been on my TO GET list for at least a couple years.) But unless you're completely ignorant of the Little Rock Nine in the first place, I can't say as I'd recommend it. I'm definitely going to have to check out that Capstone Press version now to copmare the two; that's at least written by a Black woman so it's a pretty good bet that it won't put the center of attention on a white kid.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Weekly Recap

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Big Chief Wahoo https://ift.tt/0PDHfGJ

Kleefeld on Comics: Recognizing Who Is Being Ignored https://ift.tt/16UQKcm

Kleefeld on Comics: The Buildings Are Barking Review https://ift.tt/95Au0YS

Kleefeld on Comics: The First Spider-Man https://ift.tt/PCNXjVa

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

The First Spider-Man

No, this isn't a post about how much Ditko, Kirby, Lee, Beck, or whomever contributed to the character Spider-Man. I'm looking tonight at the first person to portray the character live. There have been numerous actors who've donned the spider-suit since 1963 when he first debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15. Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire are the most recent and most obvious. Older fans might recall the TV movies starring Nicholas Hammond, or that Danny Seagren portrayed the character a few years earlier on The Electric Company. Seagren noted in an interview a few years ago that he also portrayed the character for appearances at shopping malls and the like around that time. (I seem to recall seeing a Spider-Man at one our local malls back then; I have no idea if it was Seagren or not, though.) But there was someone who played the role as an "official" Spider-Man before all that by about a decade, and that someone was none other than Roy Thomas!

I recall reading a few years back that Thomas had a Spider-Man costume and posed for publicity photos from time to time. Most notably in the 1969 Fantastic Four Annual. When I went to do a quick search to confirm things for this post, though, I came across an even more surprising discovery: the costume still exists! In fact, until 2017, it was still in Thomas' possession! It turns out that Thomas brought the costume out for comic historian John Cimino, and he's gotten it cleaned up a bit for better display. What's more, Thomas relayed the full history of how the costume came to be created...

Sometime in the last months of 1965, or in early 1966, in the Marvel offices, production manager Sol Brodsky showed me several folded-up costumes which, he said, had been sewn for Marvel by a "professional seamstress" -- or some phrase to that effect. They were costumes for Spider-Man, Fantastic Four (a uniform that could be worn by either sex), and two others, which I believe were the Wasp and Medusa. He told me the costumes had been made for the company specifically so that they could be worn in a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade... that would've had to be the 1965 one. Sol told me that the "actors" hired to wear the costumes had gotten paid in advance and hadn't marched in the parade; I believe he said or implied that they'd gotten drunk and never showed up. He told me I could have the costumes if I wanted them, as they were just cluttering up the office.

Thomas goes on to cite the various times he'd worn the costume, both to Halloween parties and for publicity photos. Check out the full post by Cimino with an extensive introduction from Thomas here. It's a fascinating look at the earliest days of Marvel's attempts at marketing. The one thing I would quibble with Cimino's comments, though. He suggests that the seamstress deliberately chose to make the leggings a different color than the torso because there were color inconsistencies in the printed books back then. Personally, I think this ascribes too much consideration on the part of the seamstress, and ignores what strikes me as a more practical reasoning: she probably simply bought a pair of leggings and couldn't get the colors to match perfectly. Occam's razor, you know? I personally didn't hear anything about this back when it first happened, and the Google searching I've done suggests it flew under the radar of all the 'regular' comic news outlets at the time, so my guess is this is still new information for most comic fans. Theoretically, Cimino will be putting the costume on the auction block at some point, but I don't see any more recent information on that. So not only did Thomas become the first "official" Spider-Man, but the very costume he wore is still around and seems to be in pretty good condition!

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

The Buildings Are Barking Review

I don't recall precisely when I first discovered Bill Griffith's work, but it was certainly sometime in the back half of the 1980s. It was the first (I think) collection of Zippy comics called Zippy Stories. It was my dad's copy; I don't when he first picked it up -- it first came out in 1981 -- but I'm certain I didn't read it until I was old enough to understand it. Well, at least as much as anyone besides Griffith can truely understand Zippy. So it should come as no surprise that my familiarity with his work is very much tied to bizarre, surreal comedy. I'm certainly aware he's done more serious, dramatic work -- I rather liked Nobody's Fool in fact and I've been sitting on a copy of Invisible Ink that I've been meaning to read for a couple years now -- but I still very much associate him with Zippy's... unique brand of humor. So coming to The Buildings Are Barking: Diane Noomin in Memoriam is a bit of change of pace. Noomin, of course, was Griffith's wife of over 40 years, who passed away last year from uterine cancer. Although the title implies it to be a recollection or recounting of what Noomin did throughout her life, it's just as much a therapy session for Griffith as he tries to process his (very understandable) grief. Between those two aspects, though, we do see much of what their relationship was and what they meant to each other. Interstingly, the art in the book is by both Griffith AND Noomin. Both are characters throughout the book and both are drawn by the artists themselves. Griffith's cartoons are all new but he's dropped in Noomin's own illustrations of herself (and/or her cartoon avatar, Didi) throughout the book. There are just a few drawings of Noomin by Griffith himself in the book and, while those are called out as such on the last page, they're fairly identifiable anyway. Even moreso if you're familiar with the photos they're obviously based on. It makes for a fitting tribute, as Griffith speaks to Noomin's 'ghost' (not an actual ghost, just a kind of metaphor) he's using her own illustrations for the responses. Those handful of instances where Griffith drew her are reserved for static memories and not really a part of the conversation per se. The book isn't entirely without some of Griffith's trademark surrealism, though. Zippy appears periodically in the background, and Ko-Ko the Clown acts as an ersatz guide to accepting Noomin's passing. Not to mention that Griffith recounts one of his dreams, which kind of has a surrealistic edge by default. (Although, not surprisingly, Griffith's actual dream makes more narrative sense than your average installment of Zippy!) So it's not just 24 pages of Griffith moping about in a state of grief and depression. Interestingly, both the title and the final punchline of the book were both "written" by Noomin herself. But as it retails for only $7.00 US, I'll let you buy the book to find out about those yourself. The book was only just released this week from Fantagraphics, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding a copy. Worth picking up if you've ever found any of Griffith's and/or Noomin's work enjoyable at all. It is indeed a fitting tribute to her, even if it is a little askew from what you might expect to see from Griffith.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Recognizing Who Is Being Ignored

Eric Kim posted the following on Mastodon earlier this week...

He's got several excellent points here. One thing I've been very keen on since college is being able to put the pop culture I currently like in context against where/when/how/why it was produced and by whom. I recall originally coming to this as a codified realization in respect to comedy; you can only understand (and laugh at) a joke if you understand what's being implicitly or explicitly referenced. Whether that's what expectation is being subverted or how you're deliberately conflating two homonyms or whatever, the joke is only funny in light of the audience understanding that. I later applied the idea to cartoons. I was a fan of the old Merrie Melodies and when I began to realize just how much Carl Stalling and others were borrowing from other composers, I began listening to classical music. And this is a large part of the approach I've long taken to comics. I've said before how I first really got hooked on comics through John Byrne's Fantastic Four. This led me to digging through the rest of their history. Which led me to Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Which led me to Marvel Comics as a whole. Which led me to superhero comics as a whole. Which led me to comics as a whole. I'm always trying to put my current reading into the context of everything that came before. And because of all that, I can put in some measure of perspective when presented with someone's narrative of the craft and/or medium, whether that's How to Make Comics the Marvel Way or Understanding Comics or The Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Comics. Because I've expressly gone out of my way to read up on not only the official company line about Batman, but also what Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson and Jim Steranko and Jack Kirby had to say about Bob Kane, I can put the Wikipedia article about him in some measure of context. And that's not to say every first-hand account or Wikipedia article is wrong, of course, just that they're being presented with a specific agenda and knowing a broader context can help me discern what that agenda might be. Bill Finger being sidelined in the creation of Batman for so many decades is an easy go-to for comics fans, but it's hardly unique. Frankly, it barely counts compared to many "people from maginalized backgrounds" as Kim puts it. None of Jay Jackson's decades of work was ever collected and/or reprinted until this past December, despite it being immediately worthy of an Eisner nomination. There's no Wikipedia entry at all for Chu F. Hing, creator of the Green Turtle. How many biographies have you seen of Filipino comic book artists? I know of only one. Much of Trina Robbins career over the past two decades has been bringing to light all the previously overlooked women in the history of comics. There are tons of people there who developed incredible work, but have long been glossed over because of their gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or whatever. They're no less imporant than all those cis-het white men, but they were pushed aside when the history books were first written so others could take all the credit (and accompanying rewards). So as Kim says, be aware of not only who is saying what, but also what they aren't saying. Who is being left out of the conversation and why? If you understand that, that's when you finally start to understand the medium.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Big Chief Wahoo

We're not talking about the mascot of the former Cleveland Indians, but Allen Saunders & Elmer Woggon's Big Chief Wahoo comic strip. I'll borrow the description in Wikipedia's entry on Woggon:

At last syndicated, Big Chief Wahoo took off in the newspapers on November 23, 1936, opening with Wahoo receiving a letter from his girlfriend Minnie Ha-Cha in New York and rushing to her. On the way (six days into the strip), he encountered Gusto, who now played second fiddle to Wahoo. The strip quickly became a hit, adding features such as reader-submitted "Indian slango" (e.g., credit = 'trustum-bustum') and spinning off products such as Wahoo chewing gum, coloring books and paper dolls. In fact, according to Saunders (ibid), their "sawed-off Seminole" (Wahoo was actually from the Southwest, not Florida) almost got into animated cartoons.

So, pretty racist all around. Wahoo was eventually written out of the strip entirely. I gather it's because readers started responding more positively to other characters, but whether that had more to do with the new characters themselves or readers began to tire of the racist caricature of Wahoo, I don't know. Here's another snippet from Wikipedia, this time from the Steve Roper and Mike Nomad entry...

The strip initially revolved around humorous tales, such as stories about people trying to cheat Wahoo out of his money or fish-out-of-water tales of Wahoo in New York or Hollywood. But from the beginning, it was a continuity strip, and had already moved into serious adventure by 1940, when a dashing young photojournalist named Steve Roper was introduced. (Sundays continued to do gags until rejoining the main plot line in 1944.) By World War II, Roper was the lead in war-oriented adventures, and the strip was retitled Chief Wahoo and Steve Roper in 1944, then Steve Roper and Wahoo in 1946, and in 1947 simply Steve Roper, as Wahoo and Minnie were written out (last seen on February 26 and November 19, 1947, respectively).

As the story progressed, Roper's central role began including another character that was more of a peer than a sidekick, and the strip was retitled yet again in 1969 to Steve Roper & Mike Nomad. The strip continued with this name and format until it's conclusion in 2004! Allen Saunders was the formally credited writer from its debut until his retirement in 1979 at which point his son John took over writing duties. However, John has noted that he had begun helping as early as the 1950s and, when he died in 2003, King Features stated that he had been "fully responsibility" for the strip since 1955. So it's unclear if the changes in direction came more from Allen or John. Or how much was influenced by the artists. Woggon (along with a number of ghost artists) only drew the strip until 1944, at which point it was largely taken over by Pete Hoffman (though the strip was still credited to Woggon). William Overgard began drawing it in 1954 and Fran Matera took over in 1985, who took on the writing chores as well when the younger Saunders died. Regardless, I'm pleasantly surprised that such a racist cartoon was altered as early as it was. Particularly since that was the entire focus of the strip when it launched! It's shameful that such a caricature existed at all, of course, and the change seems more likely to have come from market sources rather than any moral or ethical standpoint, but the change was still made at a time well before others gave Native Americans any consideration at all. (The Chief Wahoo mascot for the Cleveland Indians didn't even debut until 1947, after the character of the strip was written out entirely! There's no real connection between the characters.) So there's something to be said for that.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Weekly Recap

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Cartoonist as Celebrity https://ift.tt/EZcdlhY

Kleefeld on Comics: Queenie, Godmother of Harlem Review https://ift.tt/xDcHtJa

Kleefeld on Comics: Missing English Translations https://ift.tt/f7bPMxq

Kleefeld on Comics: This is a One Bed Strip! https://ift.tt/yzGZmQ6

Kleefeld on Comics: The Filipino Invasion https://ift.tt/pvrt0fk

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

The Filipino Invasion

In the late 1960s, Tony DeZuñiga came to the United States from the Philippines and began working in comics. He started as an inker at DC, but soon graduated to pencilling duties. Not long after that, he co-created Jonah Hex and Black Orchid. He was incredibly talented, and editors at DC (or at least, Joe Orlando and Carmine Infantino) recognized that early on. It would seem that DeZuñiga noted to his editors, probably on multiple occasions, that he knew a great many talented comic artists in the Philippines. Orlando and Infantino flew over to the island nation to scout for "new" talent in 1971. Among the creators they recruited over the next couple of years were Alfredo Alcala, Alex Niño, Nestor Redondo, Gerry Talaoc, Romeo Tanghal, and Ernie Chan. It's sometimes been dubbed the "Filipino Invasion" and a documentary called Illustrated By (which I have yet to be able to catch and does not appear to be streaming anywhere) about it was released in 2012, shortly after DeZuñiga's passing.

Aside from that, however, there hasn't been much talked about with that group of creators. There's a biography about Alcala, but beyond that, all I can find are a handful of creator-specific interviews and obituaries of those creators who've passed away. Personally, I know very little about any of these creators. I've seen some of Tanghal's inking work from some of the books he did for Marvel in the late 1980s, but I'm probably most familiar with Redondo thanks to his working on some adaptations of classic literature with Vince Fago. Two things I wonder about here. First, how much does their heritage play into their "acceptance" in comics history? I mean, they're all incredibly talented artists, blowing away most of their American contemporaries and yet we hear little about them. Are they over-looked now because of their Filipino ethnicity? Were they dismissed at the time for it, leading to their dismissal today? That is, were they passed over in the '70s for "choice" assignments, so their lasting influence is reduced simply because they were given any substantial opportunities then? Second, how much of their being recruited in the first place was done because publishers could get away with paying them less than American artists? Most of them were living in the US at the time, so their rates couldn't have been that abysmal, but supposedly Infantino was having trouble recruiting American talent in the early 1970s, so this influx of Filipino talent was a boon. But was the reason Infantino having difficulties simply because he wasn't (or wasn't given the budget to be) paying them enough? Was he eager to sign up foreign-born talent because they worked cheap? I'll admit that I assumed all of them were still living in the Philippines when I first heard about the "Filipino Invasion" and that certainly colors my perspective here, but I think it's a fair question to ask. It's hardly unheard of that legal immigrants are not infrequently hired because they're believed to be willing to work cheaper than native-born Americans. So did that influence Infantino's thinking here? Did he ever admit to that? I think a lot more work needs to be done on this corner of comics history. I'm sure the Illustrated By documentary is a fantastic start, but given it's limited release -- and the fact that that is pretty much it -- these artists deserve some more attention than what we've historically given them.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

This is a One Bed Strip!

You know how husbands and wives on television used to be depicted sleeping in separate beds? Rob and Laura Petrie, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, Fred and Wilma Flintstone (at least at first)... That was a form of sanitation that eliminated even the suggestion that the characters might have sex. Which was odd, considering they all had children. I suppose much of that idea stems from television really coming to prominence in the very staid and repressed 1950s. But what about comic strips? Newspapers had a much earlier and wider circulation than television, so how were couples' bedrooms depicted there? I was surprised to find this Blondie comic from June 1934, shortly after the birth of their son Alex (then called "Baby" or "Baby Dumpling")...

Note the second panel, where Blondie wakes Dagwood up from sleeping right next to her! This is a decade and a half before a married couple was shown sleeping in the same bed on television at all, and a quarter century before it was shown outside one or two rare instances. I believe many people, myself included, tend to think of newspaper comics as being very bland and not pushing boundaries. I suspect, though, that that is a fairly recent phenomenon, and probably coincides with newspapers' declining sales -- and aging reader demographic -- over the past couple of decades. Of course, that single bed wasn't shown until after Blondie and Dagwood were married, three years into the strip's run. I mean, they had at least some decorum!

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Missing English Translations

The first comic series I remember being axed before the story was resolved was Mirror Walker from 1989, which I talked about a couple years ago here. The publisher went out of business before the second issue could be published. There are, of course, other reasons that a comic might drop off mid-story. Omega the Unknown was famously canned for low sales, but Marvel eventually finished the story in another title. How many webcomics remain unfinished because the creators working on it had to deal with life stuff?

One of the more curious ones to me, though, are when the comics are actually completed, but they were published in another country originally and it's the English translations that stop getting published. I believe the first instance where I encountered that was with Son Hee-joon and Kim Youn-kyung's iD_eNTITY. It originally ran as 유레카 (Yureka) in South Korea in 2000 before Tokyopop picked it up to print in the US in 2005. Tokyopop dropped the series in 2008, which coincided with a corporate "restructuring" that saw the cancellation of a number of other titles. There's a whole book to be had on what the hell happened with Tokyopop around this time, but they effectively shut down publishing entirely from 2011-2015 and when they started back up, they seem to have started from scratch, ignoring whatever titles they had in the pipeline before. (Seriously, there is a huge black hole of information on what exactly was going at Tokyopop during that timeframe. From my distinctly no-inside-information-whatsoever perspective, it looks like CEO Stu Levy just suddenly decided on a whim that he wanted to become involved in movies and stopped giving a rat's ass about comics. And he only turned his attention back to comics after the movie industry didn't embrace him. I've never met or spoken to Levy personally but the couple times that I've heard him speak, he struck me as pretty narcissistic. But that he just so quickly and casually shit-canned pretty much his entire staff despite the publishing arm seemingly doing pretty well just so that he could take a shot at being a Hollywood person suggests to me that narcissism is borderline sociopathic. I would love someone knowledgable about -- but not beholden to -- Levy and/or Tokyopop to write in detail about what the hell actually happened.) I liked the story of iD_eNTITY but we only got twelve volumes here in the US. It ran for a total of 41 volumes, eventually wrapping up in 2014. The story was about several kids who had pretty average kid problems in the real world but were involved in a popular MMORPG in which they were vying for a championship title. I found the contrast of their in-game success with their mediocrity of their real world "wins" interesting and, given this was written in the early 2000s, somewhat prescient. But since the official/legal English translations ended barely a quarter of the way through the overall story, I have no idea how it goes. In theory, some other company could pick up where Tokyopop left off, but that doesn't make much sense financially. The first twelve volumes are now clearly out of print, so you'd have to re-translate and re-print those if you wanted any hope of getting new readers, but those would simultaneously be a hard sell for anyone like me who already read them. Another $150 just to get to a point that I've aleady gotten to? Not likely. So, looking at it from a publishing point of view, it would have to be a massively popular title to even hope to break even. I've had a few instances since then where I began picking up translated foreign language works that were dropped. The finale of Christophe Blain's Isaac the Pirate has never made it to the US despite it being over fifteen years since the last English installment. Although it still could technically get published, there haven't been any new English translations of Riad Sattouf's Arab of the Future since 2019, so I'm thinking I'm probably screwed out of an ending there as well. Teshkeel's The 99 only got five of its 35 issues seen in the US. (Well, five of the main title issues. There were a couple one-shots and an English-first (I think) crossover with DC Comics. Also, I think a few more issues were translated and published electronically at one point, but none of those seem to be online any longer. Publishing is messy.) All were stories I was really enjoying and actively when we didn't see when the next volume should have dropped, and I'm sure there are plenty of others that I enjoyed well enough but didn't relize when a new volume didn't come out when a regular schedule might suggest it should. Or books that I didn't realize were foreign works. Not to mention all the titles that never even hit my radar in the first place! I bring all this up because these really bother me. I understand that any number of issues can keep a series I enjoy from getting completed. Creative differences between artist and writer, the creators having to deal with more pressing real life issues, even just the creator realizing the story has gone in a direction they're no longer passionate about. But the translated books falling to the wayside bother me because the bulk of the work is done. The story has been completed. It's written, it's drawn, it's even published. The creator told the story they wanted to tell. But it's in a language I don't understand. And while some of that theoretically a limitation on my part, I'm not a linguist; I can't read Korean and French and Arabic on top of my native English. It's not even like there's a lot of overlap among them, as there is with a set of Romance languages. So I'm annoyed that these stories are out there, complete, but I am only able to enjoy a portion of them. I get that there are capitalistic reasons why there's not complete Enlgish translations and it's unreasonable to expect them to continue to publish these solely for my entertainment, but it's a particularly frustrating way as a reader to be left hanging.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Queenie Godmother of Harlem Review

I only first learned about Queenie's existence within the past year or so when I read Mikaël's Harlem; however, I believe I had actually gotten a copy of Queenie: Godmother of Harlem already but simply had not read it. I want to say Mikaël's book was submitted for an Eisner Award, and that's why I prioritized reading that but I seem to recall seeing both books around the same time. In any event, Queenie: Godmother of Harlem by Elizabeth Colomba and Aurélie is a biography of Stephanie St. Clair, who was a New York City mob boss in the 1930s. She stood toe to toe with the likes of Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano, and commanded their respect despite being both Black and a woman. Although ostensibly a "bad guy" by virtue of being a mob moss, Queenie was in fact a very strong advocate for the Black community, writing newspaper pieces that pointed out police brutality and corruption (somewhat ironic since she was paying some of them off herself) as well as advocating for voting rights. She helped promote talented Black members of the community and helped lift up the names of the likes of Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. She regularly contributed to rent parties and acted as a banker to many Harlem locals who were denied opportunities at more formal institutions. Colomba and Aurélie do an excellent job of portraying Queenie's entire life. While the book opens in the '30s with her already being well-established, they use a number of flashbacks to give glimpses into her childhood and her rise in Harlem. I think that's one of the great successes of Queenie: Godmother of Harlem over Harlem, which is almost entirely centered around her life as a mob moss with no context of how she go there. The flashbacks in Queenie not only provide that context but are expertly interspersed throughout the story to help connect with her current decisions and actions. One thing I particularly like about the story is that it essentially has a happy ending. I think the expectation with a story about anyone on the "wrong" side of the law is for things to end with a huge gun battle à la Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but we're able to see Queenie enjoy herself and live a happy, contented life. Granted, since this is a biography, that has lot to do with what Queenie actually did with her life, but Colomba and Aurélie made, I think, a smart choice in actually showing that and letting us spend a little time there. Probably my biggest criticism of the book was the use of asterisks. (I know that sounds weird; bear with me.) Because it is a narrative biography of a historical figure, there are a number of instances where colloquial language and/or references are used that might not be well known today. As one might expect, after many of these, an asterisk is included to direct readers to a note somewhat separated from the main story explaining the word or phrase. Conceptually, that's fine and I appreciate the additional information in many cases. But the problem I have here is that sometimes the asterisk directs readers to a note at the bottom of the page, sometimes it directs them to a note at the back of the book, and in one instance, there is an entire extra page couched within the broader narrative that breaks the fourth wall to explain the phrase in detail. As far as I can tell, there's no discernable way to tell which of those three methods is used in any given instance, and more than a couple times, I found myself flipping to the endnotes only to find that the asterisk referred instead to a footnote. And the in-story aside of the one had me totally lost since, even after I stumbled into it, it's the only instance of the fourth wall breaking and seemed very out of place. The story overall was done very well, and I quite liked learning of Queenie's significance to the Black community at that time. If you still have the impression of 1930s mob bosses as the stereotypical movie gangsters that shot it out with the likes of Eliot Ness, I'd urge you to pick up Queenie: Godmother of Harlem. It came out early this year from Abrams/Megascope and should be available at all major retailers for $24.99 US.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Cartoonist as Celebrity

One thing that I think we frequently forget these days is that, back in the first half of the twentieth century, cartoonists were celebrities. They'd get paid to hawk wares the way pro athletes do today. Here's clearly-not-very-comfortable-in-front-of-a-camera Rube Goldberg in an educational short about perpetual motion. (Also, buy a Chevrolet!) And here's (in addition to the cast of the Blondie radio show) Alex Raymond encouraging people to join the Marines... And here's a Chicago Tribune promotion about the creation of paper featuring Chester Gould and Carey Orr... Maybe it's just me, but I'm continually astounded that cartoonists used to be celebrated that much.

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.

Weekly Recap

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Chaykin on Patriotism https://ift.tt/FsAGZai

Kleefeld on Comics: Great Day, Great Country https://ift.tt/aGDK4O3

Kleefeld on Comics: Dictatorship Review https://ift.tt/tTy6FWJ

Kleefeld on Comics: Monkey King Review https://ift.tt/v9H3mXe

Kleefeld on Comics: Spawn #10 https://ift.tt/VGFzHu9

And don't forget that I'm running a Patreon campaign now, and I would really appreciate your support in helping to continue my comics research.