Todd Klein's Blog, page 155

And Then I Read: MYSTERY MANOR by M.E. Atkinson

There is a sub-genre of novels written for children mainly in the 1920s through 1960s that I’ve long enjoyed. No magic or fantasy involved. Some call it “British Holiday Adventures,” though “British Family Adventures” would work as well. The general premise is a small group of children, usually from one family, sometimes with a few friends, who are on break from school and free to roam with little or no adult supervision, and who have adventures including visiting unusual places, solving non-murder mysteries, and taking part in exotic (to them) activities in the area of the story. The best of these, in my opinion, are the series of twelve books written by Arthur Ransome beginning with “Swallows and Amazons.” At the bottom end would be several series of books that follow an obvious, repetitious formula written by Enid Blyton. This genre may have been started by Edith Nesbit’s books about the Bastable family beginning with “The Story of the Treasure Seekers” in 1899. Other authors in this genre I enjoy are Winifred Mantle, David Severn, Philip Turner, Hull & Whitlock (the Oxus trilogy) and M. E. Atkinson.

Unlike the others on that list, I never found any Atkinson books when I was a child, I don’t think they were published here much if at all, but in my twenties I began finding them at used book sales, and later buying them online. Atkinson’s longest and best known series is about the Lockett family, 14 books in all. Mystery Manor is the fourth of the series.

The early Lockett stories are illustrated by Harold Jones, a fine artist and author himself. The endpaper map for this book is a good example of his style, and books with maps are usually an indication of a fun story. The Lockett children are older brother Oliver (the bookish one), sister Jane (the idea person), and younger brother Bill (the strongest, action-loving one). They are joined by several friends, including Anna, a quiet girl who is nonetheless fearless in the face of danger.

“Mystery Manor” returns the group to Wilbrow Manor, which appeared as a sort of haunted house in their first story (“August Adventure”), but now they are staying in the carriage house as guests of the owner, in the care mainly of the house- and grounds-keepers. The Locketts’ parents live in India, and the children are shuttled around between various aunts and uncles. Here, Aunt Margaret is meant to be with them, but is mostly away helping another aunt during a hospital stay, leaving the children conveniently on their own a lot. One interesting thing about the series is that it becomes metafiction because Aunt Margaret is an author who, with the children’s help and stories, writes about their adventures, and is the “author” of the Lockett books. In the books themselves, they meet others who have bought and read their books, and know about some of their past adventures. By the end of the series this becomes cumbersome, but early on it’s an interesting aspect.

Wilbrow Manor is reported to be haunted, something the children experienced themselves in their first book, but now its new owner is having it renovated and restored to be lived in when he returns from other business. The Locketts decide they must try to find out about and hopefully dispell the haunting, whatever it might be, and they are soon learning much about the history of the house and the family that long owned it. The last remaining member of the family lives alone nearby, and an odd character he is. The Locketts are soon following him, meeting him, and learning secrets about the house and grounds that have eluded previous investigations.

This is a long and satisfying read if you like the genre. The Locketts are upper middle class, and some of their friends are definitely upper class. When not on their bikes, they are chauffered around, often stop for meals like “elevenses” and “tea,” and rarely encounter serious threats from those they meet, but there is plenty of suspense as they creep around the empty house at night, find mysterious underground passages and suspicious characters, and get involved with the local families and children. Several mysteries unfold, every character has their moment to shine, and the plot is not predictable until near the end. Books such as this are like comfort food for the mind to me, and I enjoyed this one a great deal. There’s just one more Lockett book I haven’t read, the last, and it’s on my “to read” shelf.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: FAITH Volume 1

Image © Valiant Enterrtainment.

Comics are full of handsome and beautiful heroes and heroines. Less perfect forms are often reserved for supporting characters or villains. Here’s an attempt to break that mold by offering a plus-size heroine, Faith Herbert, fighting crime as Zephyr. Formerly of the super-team The Renegades, she’s now on her own in Los Angeles.

Faith has found a job as Summer Smith, a blogger for a celebrity news site, and isn’t liking it much. Her boss is intimidating, her fellow employees cut-throat, and the subject matter sometimes off-putting, as when she’s expected to dish dirt on her ex-boyfriend. Despite her powers, Faith feels rather lost, and relies on her vivid fantasy-life imaginings, which we see depicted in a different art style, to get her through the day.

Faith’s first crime-fight is against puppy-nappers, but things soon turn more serious and deadly when she gets on the trail of a sinister group who is out to capture and drain power from other psiots (superheroes) like herself, who are perfectly willing to use their own agents as suicide bombers when necessary.

I enjoyed this collection of Faith’s first four issues that was given to me at Balticon. I admire the attempt to make the heroic field more inclusive, and wish writer Jody Houser and artists Francis Portela and Marguerite Sauvage well with the series.

Recommended.

Pulled From My Files #69: ELIMINATOR

This and all images © Marvel.

In 1994 I was asked by Jim Chadwick at Malibu Comics to design a logo for The Eliminator. Jim might have asked to see some metallic treatments, as the note on this first sketch suggests, and I provided them, using this first design. It’s a very plain vanilla design using squared-off block letters.

Here’s that design with the addition of THE at left, and the rest with an added bevel and metallic shading in pencil. The bevel and shading add interest, but now the letters inside the bevel seem too narrow to me.

This version adds telescoping to put the letters in three dimensions. This was as far as the metallic approach went, and probably just as well.

This sketch has the other three designs I turned in at the same time, and Jim liked version 2 best, but asked for a few changes, which I made notes about. He didn’t like the rounded E’s thought the N would read better with a notch, and wanted the left leg of the R extended up to touch  the curve. The odd shape of the O came from the character’s costume, something that always adds interest and individuality to a logo. One thing I liked about working with Jim Chadwick: he knew what he liked and how to get there. That made my job easier.

This final marker sketch offers three versions of the E, with the first one, my favorite, in the logo itself. The other changes have been made as suggested. Jim approved this sketch, but wanted the middle version of E, and to go back to having THE stacked on the left side.

The final logo, I think inked on Denril plastic vellum. In addition to the other changes, the outlines on the main word have been made a little thicker.

Here’s how it looked on the first issue, and I see that THE has been dropped completely. It works well for me, and I like the flare of lighter blue on the O.

Other posts in this series can be found in the “Pulled From My Files” topic on the right side of this blog page. More when I have time.

And Then I Read: NEWSBOY LEGION – BOY COMMANDOS SPECIAL

Image © DC Comics.

I hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to who was working on these Jack Kirby 100th Anniversary specials, so it was a pleasant surprise to find this one written and illustrated by Howard Chaykin. I haven’t read any of his comics in a while, and it was good to get back into his world. Of course, it’s also Jack Kirby’s world, or in this case Joe Simon and Jack Kirby who created the two kid gang teams for DC (then National Comics) in the early 1940s. I have to admit I’ve never read any of those early stories. I am more familiar with the Newsboy Legion from their appearances in Kirby’s run on JIMMY OLSEN in the early 1970s. Both teams are full of caricatures, kids with very pronounced accents or styles of speaking, or ways of acting that give them shorthand memorable individuality. This story pits both gangs against subversive Nazi plots and agents, and of course their stories meet up eventually. Howard does a fine job with everything, though at times the frenetic plot trumps the character moments, and individual gang members got mixed in my mind, but in all it’s a fun romp through World War Two America and Europe, when the bad guys were easy to identify. Nice to see some new lettering by Ken Bruzenak, and that Howard still works with him when he can, as he has for decades. There’s also a reprint of an old Newsboy Legion story that looks like it might be fun, but…I didn’t read it.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: YSABEL by Guy Gavriel Kay

Cover art by Larry Rostant.

Ned Marriner is with his father Edward and a crew of assistants in Provence, France where Edward is doing photographs for a new book. He meets Kate Wenger in an old cathedral in Aix, another American in France as an exchange student, and the two of them have an eerie encounter with a man there, Phelan, who might be from the distant past. Forces are at work bringing a very old story of love and death from the distant pre-Roman past back into the present: two men, Phelan and Cadell, in love with an amazing woman, Ysabel. These three, and others around them return to a sort of life every so often to play out their story, but while the men return as themselves, the woman is reincarnated through a modern-day female. At first, Ned’s girlfriend Kate seems to be falling into the spell, but then his father’s personal assistant Melanie arrives and is captured instead.

Over the next few days, Ned and his friends and family must try to find Ysabel, who has gone into hiding somewhere in an ancient site in Provence, and do so before either Cadell or Phelan find her to have any hope of getting Melanie back. Ned soon finds his own place in the story when previously unknown abilities surface, handed down through his ancestors, and also evident in his Aunt Kim, who arrives to help. Encounters with spirit wolves, a malevolent Druid priest, a giant wild boar, and ghosts of ancient mighty battles complicate the search, putting everyone in danger. Will Ned find Ysabel in time?

I enjoyed this, but didn’t think it was as successful as the other Kay books I’ve read. Somehow the melding of ancient past to present seemed more forced than natural, and I thought there were too many instances where the main characters did not seem to have a clear picture of what was going on, therefore making it harder for me as a reader to get the big picture. Still, lots of fine writing and great characters.

Recommended.

THE DANNY CRESPI FILES Part 14

This and all images © Marvel.

Continuing my ongoing series about the cover lettering of Danny Crespi at Marvel Comics, mostly from 1974-1979. Photocopies of saved cover lettering from Danny’s files were compiled into a collection by letterer and friend Phil Felix during the 1980s when he worked with Danny on staff at Marvel, and Phil sent me copies. This time I’ll look at pages 53 to 56. Page 53, above, is all by Danny Crespi. Sources follow.

“Lunatic on Every Corner” from MAN-THING #21, Sept. 1975. Danny’s lettering looks good reversed here (white letters on black).

“Man-Elephant” from SAVAGE SHE-HULK #17, June 1981. Late for Danny, and the top line is typeset, but the open letters are Danny’s. As Stuart Moore said about this one, “I don’t know if I actually want to Make Way for the Man-Elephant. Perhaps the Man-Elephant could take a different route?”

“War Against the World” from AVENGERS #147, May 1976.

“The Nightmare Box” from MAN-THING #20, Aug. 1975. The caption under the logo is also on this page. Note that the line “Because you demanded it” must have been pasted separately on the original lettering, and is missing.

Finally, “Doom’s Day at the U.N.” from SPIDEY SUPER STORIES #9, June 1965.

Page 54, all lettered by Danny Crespi.

“Turmoil in the Time-Stream” from THOR #243, Jan. 1976. This one looks great with a red caption box fill, but I hate the way it’s pasted over Thor’s foot. I would have made it a little smaller and moved it left.

“Battle Beyond the Stars” from MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #51, July 1975.

“Midnight in the Morgue” from CHAMBER OF CHILLS #20, Jan. 1976.

“Slave to the Power Imperious” from IRON MAN #75, June 1975. This one was hard to find because they removed a letter from IMPERVIOUS on Danny’s original to make it IMPERIOUS. Funny how it works either way. Thanks to Michael Styborski for finding it.

Page 55. The top three are by Danny Crespi, “Weathermen” is by Gaspar Saladino, and I think “A Princess Alone” is by Jim Novak.

“Ghost Rider and Satana” is from MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #22, June 1975.

“Unhumans” from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #17, June 1975.

“Stalking Dead” from SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS #13, June 1975. Note that these first three were all published in the same month, and might well have been lettered at the same time by Danny.

“Weathermen” from AVENGERS #210, Aug. 1981. Things that indicate this is by Gaspar to me: the TH joined twice in the top line the low indent on the right side of the R in WEATHERMEN and the line shading in that word.

“A Princess Alone” from STAR WARS #30, Dec. 1979. Jim Novak was the best at imitating Gaspar Saladino, and even copied some of Gaspar’s personal style points like the low indent on the right side of the R here, but the shape of the letter S, among others, is not like anything else Gaspar did, so that’s why I’m guessing it’s by Novak.

Page 56, all by Danny Crespi except “Mr. Danger” at bottom left, which is by Gaspar Saladino.

“Fu Manchu” from MASTER OF KUNG FU #18, June 1974.

“Blazing Six-gun Action” from RINGO KID #28, July 1976. A rare large block of lettering with no caption box from Danny, with excellent flame effects in BLAZING.

“Just a Doom Called X” from POWER MAN #27, Oct. 1975. I think putting a large X on just about any Marvel Comic was likely to get attention.

“Shadow over Haunted Castle” from TOMB OF DRACULA #23, Aug. 1974.

“Mr. Danger” from EVEL KNIEVEL #1, a rare custom comic from Marvel with cover lettering by Gaspar Saladino. Two style points that suggest this: the dry-brush work on PERILOUS, and in the other burst balloon on the cover, a very Gaspar sort of burst, unlike what Crespi did.

Finally, “The Night Shocker” from POWER MAN #26, Aug. 1975. This one by Danny looks great. Note the upturned right legs of the K and R in SHOCKER, a Crespi style point.

More of these when I have time to research them. Previous parts in this series, and other articles you might enjoy are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.

And Then I Read: HAL JORDAN & THE GL CORPS #17

Image © DC Entertainment.

While many of the Yellow Lanterns, with their leader Soranik, have joined the Green Lanterns on Mogo in a combined force to combat evil, some Yellows have resisted and fled. Many are now captured and in GL science cells, including Arkillo, the most feared, brought in last issue by Guy Gardner. Things seem to be going the way of Earth’s GLs John Stewart, Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan, but the two remaining Guardians have a new project for Kyle involving the last remaining Blue Lantern, Saint Walker. That project will change Kyle’s status and abilities, and it remains to be seen if the effort is worth the cost. Enjoyable story by Robert Venditti, fine art by Ethan Van Sciver.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERNS #19

Image © DC Entertainment.

It seems Jessica and Simon, Earth’s young Green Lanterns, are suddenly in demand, first by Batman, now by the Justice League, in particular to deal with an old Green Lantern foe, Doctor Polaris. Before they can get started, Simon and his brother have an argument that opens old wounds, while Jessica can only sympathize. Despite their powers, Simon and Jessica have not yet figured out problems in their personal lives.

Doctor Polaris actually opens the issue, as we find out his current situation. His brother has brain cancer, and Polaris thinks he can cure him, if he only has time. Trouble is, he’s out of meds for his bi-polar disorder (appropriately enough), and can feel the evil side of his personality emerging. When the US Government tries to take him in, things don’t go well. Will Simon and Jessica do any better?

Well written by Sam Humphries, fine art by Ronan Cliquet. Recommended.

Pulled From My Files #70: EVIL MUTANTS

This and all images © Marvel.

I’m a kind, gentle person, avoiding violence whenever possible, really I am. You might not guess it from some of the logo designs I’ve done. Some time in the early 1990s, Marvel Licensing asked for designs with this name. I don’t know what the intended use was, perhaps X-Men villain toys? At any rate, I did the “dangerous and pointy” thing that Marvel was enamored with at the time. This one is pretty evil, all right, but a little hard to read.

Another marker sketch that’s much more straightforward. The inner shapes make this one also a bit hard to read, but if held in a color that would be less likely.

Someone liked version 2, but wanted it less jumbled, and this version is easier to read. These are all I have for this project, which never went to a final version, so I don’t know if someone else developed the final logo, or perhaps the project itself was dropped. I’m thinking some heavy metal band might have wanted this one…

More in this series can be found in the “Pulled From My Files” topic in the right column of my blog.

Rereading: DOCTOR DOLITTLE’S ZOO by Hugh Lofting

Cover art by Hugh Lofting.

Okay, I’ve given up trying to read these in chronological order. Lofting wrote them following two timelines, one with a younger Doctor, one with an older one, accompanied by his assistant Tommy Stubbins. The first book published in 1920, “The Story of Doctor Dolittle,” is, of course, the young Doctor just learning to speak to animals, and traveling to Africa. The second, published in 1922, and my favorite, “The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle” is the older Doctor traveling to the South Atlantic. The third and fourth published in 1923 and 1924, “Doctor Dolittle’s Post Office,” and “Doctor Dolittle’s Circus” follow the younger Doctor. This, the fifth book, published in 1925, is about the older Doctor, and is a direct sequel to “Voyages.”

Sadly, it’s not as exciting as that book, which was full of thrills and adventure. This one has the Doctor back home in Puddleby trying to get his long-neglected house and garden in order, and working on plans to upgrade his private zoo (in his garden) to hold more animals. After consulting some of the animals already there, a plan is drawn up to create large housing complexes for mice and rats, “The Rat and Mice Club,” as well as similar housing for stray dogs, foxes, badgers and squirrels, plus a main street with shops where they could buy food and such. Of course, the Doctor insists all the animals obey a code of non-aggression in his zoo, and the animals are so happy to have these new opportunities, they agree.

Much of the middle of the book focuses on stories told by inhabitants of the Rat and Mouse Club at a series of evening events attended by the Doctor and Tommy. These stories within stories are often entertaining, but leave the Doctor himself with little to do but listen, with Tommy recording. The last section of the book finally brings action and adventure, as the Doctor and his household become involved in the mystery of Moorsden Manor. First, a mouse who lives there reports a fire in the basement. The Doctor and friends rush there to raise an alarm and put it out, but find the owner very hostile. The reason why becomes the mystery, and it’s good fun seeing it all roll out.

Recommended.