Todd Klein's Blog, page 200

And Then I Read: JACKED #4

Josh is a middle-aged man in a world of trouble. He thought the mail-order drug, Jacked, would solve his middle-aged health problems, and it did much more than that for a while, but the super-powers it gave him only led to new and more drastic problems. Now he has a drug kingpin and his mob after him, is on the run with that man’s wife, and his own family is in danger too. Plus, he’s nearly out of the pills, and the man who made them is in jail.

A story like this is bound to take a turn toward the abyss, and this issue’s title, “Rock Bottom,” is a clue it’s happening now. The first three issues were fun, but now it’s time to start paying for that fun, and things will probably only get worse in the last two issues of the mini-series. The writing by Eric Kripke and the art by John Higgins are fine, but the story is becoming a downer. I’ll stick around for the rest, though. Fair is fair. Consequences and all that.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: DOCTOR FATE #8

Image © DC Comics.

Love that cover by Sonny Liew, don’t miss the bottom row. Inside, we have guest art by Ibrahim Moustaka that looks good, though it’s a little more mainstream than Sonny.

Khalid has these powers, and with it new responsibilities in his already over-crowded life. He feels responsible for the flooding and damage caused by Anubis’ attack on him, and wants to help with the clean-up. Trouble is, he’s not sure how to use his powers to do that. Difficulties ensue. We also meet an Angel, Khalid’s girlfriend has a conversation with a cat, and Khalid looks for advice from his father, and a college professor. It’s a fairly quiet issue with lots of falling masonry, and I enjoyed it.

Recommended.

THE DANNY CRESPI FILES Part 3

Danny Crespi in the Marvel offices, 1982, photo © Eliot R. Brown.

Here’s an excerpt from the Danny Crespi interview conducted by D. Jon Zimmerman in David Anthony Kraft’s COMICS INTERVIEW #9, dated March 1984:

DANNY: I used to collect lettering assignments from different places and go home and do them. But for presentation work, you’re supposed to wait around by your phone ’til they call you, then go over to the studio to work. I don’t like that. I don’t like to wait around for people to call me. I like to belong to one place. Well, about twelve years ago I called up Morrie Kuramoto — I don’t talk to him that often and once every twelve years is enough. (Laughter.) I didn’t even know if he was still working at Marvel, but I heard he was. I asked if he had any work for me. He said, “Hey, man, I can use a hand. Come on down!” Then he told me to bring my own pen-holders! I said, “What kind of a place is this?” Apparently they never had any spare fountain pens or anything.

ZIMMERMAN: What was it like?

DANNY: It was real small. there was no room. In fact, to get me a spare seat, I had to wait for when Marie Severin was working at home. They didn’t even have shelves for supplies. Morrie gave me things to do. The pay was low — all the comics companies paid low wages in those days. But it was steady work. I wasn’t on staff, but I felt I belonged there. I came to work every day. I would do corrections, paste-ups — everything the Bullpen does now. After I was freelancing there steady for a while, John (Verpoorten) offered me a job, and I said, “Yeah, sure,” even though the wages were too low. It cost me money to work there!

One day John asked me why I was going to other places to get extra work when Marvel had plenty of extra work to give me, if I wanted to work at night. He would go around to everyone and say, “I’ve got Crespi staying here at night and I want you to have your work ready for him to finish by the time you go home.” Eventually, I helped him run the bullpen. John used to stay at night when I was working until seven or eight o’clock in the evening, doing cover-lettering and cover copy for nine-tenths of the covers. (End of interview excerpt)

This time I’ll be looking at pages 9 to 12 of the photocopied lettering collected by Phil Felix.PAGE 9. This and all following images © Marvel.

All the lettering on this page looks like the work of Danny Crespi to me. I remembered the one at upper right, and was able to find most of the rest with help from Kurt Busiek. Danny’s regular letters are very wide. His open letters are generally somewhat rounded. His balloon and caption borders are thick and distinctive.

“Golden Archer!” from CAPTAIN AMERICA #179, Nov. 1974.

“Gorko, the Man-Frog” from GIANT-SIZE MAN-THING #4, May 1975. The EXTRA looks like a style Danny picked up from Gaspar Saladino, the other main cover letterer at Marvel then.

“Stolen” from MARVEL DOUBLE FEATURE #14, Feb. 1976.

“The Valkyrie shall DIE!” from MARVEL TEAM-UP #35, July 1975. Parts of the balloon above it are there but covered by another piece of lettering.

“BLACK KNIGHT” and “SLITHEROGUE” from SKULL THE SLAYER #5, May 1976. Note that the tails were added when the cover was assembled, as was the standard procedure.

“ODIN!” from THOR #249, July 1976.

PAGE 10. All by Danny Crespi except “SNOW VAMPIRES,” which is not from a cover, and I believe lettered by John Costanza, as several people suggested.

“HAMMERHEAD” from THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #158, July 1976.

“AVENGER is coming THRU!” from THE AVENGERS #137, July 1975. The alternate spelling of “through” is interesting. We don’t know who wrote the cover copy for any of these, but it was most likely the editor or assistant editor in most cases, carrying on from the previous decade when Stan Lee was probably writing most of them.

“ALONE!” from CAPTAIN AMERICA #197, May 1976.

“WESTERN ACTION” from KID COLT OUTLAW #195, June 1975. A burst from this cover was on a previous page of the collection.

“TRAP!” from TOMB OF DRACULA #34, May 1975.

“DOOM!” from X-MEN #92, Feb. 1975. Note that most of the open lettering from this page was filled with solid red (100% magenta, 100% yellow), which always stands out and reads well.

“SNOW VAMPIRES” is from this house ad appearing in VAMPIRE TALES #3 dated Feb. 1974. Many thanks to Bob Heer for finding it. Other than the logos, this is probably all by John Costanza, a prolific story letterer for both Marvel and DC. His lettering has more curves and bounce than either Danny Crespi or Gaspar Saladino. He didn’t like to letter covers, so it’s nice to see his work represented by this interior example.

PAGE 11. OZ is from a logo possibly by Danny Crespi. “CHAMPIONS” and ‘RAMPAGE” are not by Danny, and I think “DOWN!” is by Gaspar Saladino. The rest is by Crespi, I believe.

Three balloons from ADVENTURES ON THE PLANET OF THE APES #5, April 1976. (A comic title which is too long!)

“WEBBING” from THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #154, March 1976. You rarely see thought balloons these days, this is a nice one.

“ATOM-SMASHER” and “DIE!” from BLACK GOLIATH #2, April 1976. The closeness to the character’s head has made the added tail barely noticeable, but you still get the idea of who’s talking.

“CHAMPIONS” and “RAMPAGE” from THE CHAMPIONS #6, June 1976. None of the lettering on this cover looks like Danny Crespi to me. Notice the thinner line weight on the regular letters, the very different burst style, and the uneven open letters. I don’t know who it is by, though.

“Sweet sister” from POWER MAN #26, Aug. 1975.

Balloon and burst from TWO GUN KID #130, June 1976.

OZ is from this MARVEL TREASURY OF OZ #1, 1975. That and the rest of the logo could have been lettered by Danny Crespi. The cover lettering looks more like the work of Gaspar Saladino. A very similar OZ is on the Marvel/DC tabloid adaptation of MGM’s “Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” but that one has a wider O.

PAGE 12. The two bursts at bottom right are by Gaspar Saladino, I think the rest is by Danny Crespi. I haven’t found some of them.

“Night of the Gargoyle!” from GIANT-SIZE CHILLERS #3, Aug. 1975. Often Danny Crespi’s open lettering loses impact when the shape behind it is filled with black, but in this case they put the heavily-textured and thick outlines in red, which looks great. My favorite Crespi cover burst so far. Influenced by Gaspar Saladino, but definitely Danny.

“YETIGAR!” from GODZILLA #10, May 1978. Another black burst with all white lettering this time. Negative or “reversed” photostats could be made in the Bullpen on their photostat camera and pasted in place, or the same effect could be done by the color separators.

“EVEL KNIEVEL” from a Marvel toy-based custom comic created for Ideal Toys. The shape of the C and S in EXCLUSIVE are very Gaspar Saladino, as is the burst shape. The smaller burst was likely done for this cover, but not used, or is on the back cover. The caption is probably by someone else, the S in TRAPS is unlike anything Gaspar ever did. Perhaps it’s picked up from the story title inside.

More of these when I have time. Other articles you might enjoy are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.

 

And Then I Read: ASTRO CITY 31

Image © Juke Box Productions.

The Living Nightmare, given the form seen above, IS pretty creepy. Visually interesting and disturbing at the same time. As drawn very similarly in the story by Jesús Merino, I kept looking at him, trying to reconcile the unlikely anatomy. His tale, as told by Kurt Busiek, comes to life in the dreams of ordinary people, forming a narrative of sorts as the creature becomes self-aware in a way it hadn’t been before. Escaping from the confines of a First Family containment device, the Nightmare goes on a rampage. But even as it does, it begins to realize it’s being controlled and directed by an outside force. Can it overcome that force, and confront it? What will happen then? Can an entity fed by fear have its own fears? That’s the story, and it’s a good one.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: KNIGHTS OF THE SQUARE TABLE by Teri Kanefield

Six ninth grade students from San Francisco are on their way back from a chess tournament in Europe when their plane has electrical malfunctions and crash-lands on a tiny island near Greenland. They are a team of the best chess players in their town, and their team name is the title of the book. Despite that theme, there’s almost no actual chess in the book, though logical thinking does play an important role. The three girls, Natalie, Cindy and Alexis, and the three boys, George, Liam and Spider, have quickly defined distinct personalities and approaches to problems, but they are friends, and a true team, and the disaster they find themselves in is another set of problems they set their intelligence and creativity to solve. Unlike most of the passengers, they are soon able to help by finding food in the snowy, barren island, like mussels and fish and seaweed, and they also help mediate arguments between passengers, and disputes over their meager resources. Before long they’ve set up a system to help everyone survive until help can arrive, whenever that is.

That’s only act one of this excellent story, act two takes place when they’re home, but is equally well told and fun to read. I loved the characters, and especially the way they solved problems and worked together, even in the face of hardship and danger. In act two, the danger is a different sort, but even more challenging. This is the first book of a trilogy. I hope to read the others as well.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: UNFOLLOW #4

Image © Robert Williams & Michael Dowling.

While the obvious connection to pop culture in this comic is to Twitter, with the clever title and the 140 characters, all hoping to inherit a share of the vast fortune of dying billionaire Mr. Ferrell, there’s another structure revealing itself now, a much older one. The characters are all on Mr. Ferrell’s island, and it has been revealed that, if one of the 140 dies, his or her share is split between the remaining inheritors. So, we have a kind of Tontine, but one in which the players are likely to turn on each other to increase their fortunes and their odds. It’s going to become “survival of the fittest” soon in this Darwinian experiment, and there’s already been one casualty.

This issue we learn that Mr. Ferrell has gotten the idea from a book by Akira, a popular actor and writer who is one of the 140. This suggests the choosing of the group was not random. Other players taking major roles are the film-maker Ravan, the street kid Dave, and the heavily armed religious cultist Deacon. The characters, story and art are all terrific, I’m enjoying this game, glad I’m not participating, and as with TV’s “Survivor,” happy to sit back and watch it play out.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: RAT GOD by Richard Corben

Image © Richard Corben. (The same art is on the collected edition hardcover.)

Now in his mid 70s, Richard Corben has been producing his unique style of horror-action comics for at least 50 years. It’s still as weird and compelling as ever.

Clark Elwood, a thinly-veiled stand-in for H.P. Lovecraft, is on an expedition to the remote forests well north of Arkham University, where he works. There are primitive native American tribes there still, and an outpost of civilization in the “town” of Lame Dog, more a collection of shacks with one large mansion on a hill nearby. Clark is purportedly researching a fine art painter from the area, but in reality he’s seeking a native woman  who he met in Arkham and fell in love with. The people of Lame Dog are hostile, rat-like fellows who warn him away, but Clark is stubborn, and soon gets deep into the town’s secrets, like their cult worshipping a giant rat-like creature. When he does find the girl, Kito, she’s about to be sacrificed to the Rat God, and then things get really violent and even weirder.

To this day I’m not sure what exactly appeals to me about Corben, but I like his work, I think even more when he writes as well as draws, as here. His characters are generally ugly caricatures of humanity, but with touches of humor and pathos that are appealing. His stories are at times chilling, gross, sexy, violent and beautiful. He hasn’t lost his touch, he’s been remarkably consistent for decades. This work is worth reading if you’re already a fan, or not.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: THE GARDEN BEHIND THE MOON by Howard Pyle

About a month ago I visited the Delaware Art Museum’s collection of Howard Pyle art, including about ten paintings in black and white and gray for this book. It’s one I’d never read, so I bought an inexpensive Dover paperback edition there.

Young David is a boy who seems out of touch with the world around him, always thinking and daydreaming. His schoolmates make fun of him, calling him a moon-calf. David’s friend is the village shoemaker, Hans Krout, who shares many of the same traits. Hans tells David stories about how he met the Moon-Angel, who lives in the moon, and how it’s possible to reach the moon by running along the path of moonlight it makes when it rises over the ocean. David tries this, but gets frightened and falls into the sea. Hans rescues him, and for a while, David’s parents keep him away from Hans, but eventually David tries again, and succeeds in walking the moon-path. When he reaches the moon, he’s taken inside by the Man in the Moon, who has work for David, polishing stars. When David has done that work well for many days, he’s allowed to visit the Garden Behind the Moon, where he meets other children like himself, including a girl named Phyllis who he fancies.

As David reaches his twelfth birthday, he learns he can never again visit the magical garden, but the Moon-Angel has a special task for him, one that will take much courage and resourcefulness. David must travel to the home of a wicked giant and steal back some things that will bring happiness to everyone on Earth. David accepts the challenge.

It’s been a long time since I read anything by Howard Pyle, but I remember his books as being very boy-oriented: knights of King Arthur, pirates, heroics and heroes. This book is much softer and at times melancholy. It was written in the years after Pyle’s son died unexpectedly, and that may have something to do with it. Unfortunately, I don’t think Pyle was well-suited for this kind of tale. I see echoes of George MacDonald’s “At the Back of the North Wind,” and “The Princess and the Goblin,”  but they’re much better written. Pyle comes across as writing down to children rather than writing to them. And as the book goes on, the author seems to be floundering for a plot, and he throws in elements from myth and legend, such as the one about Pegasus the winged horse and Bellerophon his human master. The winged horse on the cover above, and his story, are very similar. There are similarities to Jack and the Beanstalk, and other fairy tales as well.

The original art we saw for the book was wonderful, but it’s not well represented here. That may have been equally true when the book was printed originally in 1895, I don’t know. Sadly, I can’t recommend the story. I found myself sometimes looking at the remaining pages to see how much longer until it was over, and it’s not a long book. I’d say, stick to Pyle’s other books and skip this one.

 

And Then I Read: SWAMP THING 2

Image © DC comics.

With this comic I begin reading and reviewing monthly DC Comics on my iPad. DC has replaced their long-standing system of mailing out complimentary copies of their entire line to freelancers (the ones who do a certain amount of work for the company) with digital subscriptions through Comixology. I’m fine with the new plan, I’m actually happy not to be getting all those printed comics and having to store or dispose of them. Reading comics on my iPad is a little less convenient than picking up a printed issue, but not that much. The images are about 75% of the printed comic at full page size, but you can zoom in quite a bit as needed. The quality of the images is not as good as printed comics, the ink lines are a little blurry if you look closely, but in general it works well for me.

Len Wein and Kelley Jones on SWAMP THING was such a hit when they did it for the Convergence crossover event, they’ve been given this miniseries to do more. The Swamp  Thing is in his swamp in Louisiana with no supporting cast thus far. He has some— or perhaps all—of the powers of recent series, but is less involved in the wider mythology of “the Green,” and instead is focused on a husband and wife, the Wormwoods, who have come to him for help with their son, who appears to have become a zombie, and is involved in a killing spree. After pulling himself together from their initial battle, Swamp Thing goes to The Shade (from STARMAN) for advice on how to deal with Lazlo Wormwood and the black magic that has animated him. The Shade has some answers, and most of the issue involves Swampy battling Lazlo and trying to use his new information.

So far the writing on this series is classic Len Wein, enjoyable but not new or remarkable. Where the book really shines is in Kelley Jones’ artwork. Kelley’s surrealist approach to the character and the story begins at Bernie Wrightson (the original Swamp Thing artist), but proceeds into the horrific exaggeration and surrealism that Kelley does so well. I think it’s a perfect style for this book. These days when reading comics I rarely stop and study the art, but I have to with Kelley because the details are so fascinating. His storytelling is excellent in an over-the-top melodramatic way that makes every page more exciting, too. I love looking at it.

An interesting reveal is on the last page, we’ll see  where we go next.

Recommended.

THE DANNY CRESPI FILES Part 2

Production Manager Danny Crespi at his desk in the Marvel Comics bullpen, March 1979, photo © Eliot R. Brown.

Continuing my occasional series on Danny Crespi and his cover lettering, from a large collection assembled by letterer Phil Felix in 1984. As I research this, I’m posting pages on Facebook, and when I began, many who worked with and knew Danny posted unsolicited comments about what a fine person he was, notes about his lettering, and personal memories. Here are a few.

Phil Felix: It’s nice to think that I have a small part in keeping Mr. Crespi’s name remembered, through this collection of his (and others’) work. He was a great guy and I’m really proud that I got to know him and learn from him.

Rick Parker: I owe my employment at Marvel to Danny Crespi and will be eternally grateful for having known him. There was never a man with a bigger heart. A great family man, too. He loved his kids and used to stay in the office after hours to do these cover blurbs and miss the rush hour traffic on the subway to the Bronx. He would call his wife every night and say, “What’s for dinner, Babe?” Treated everyone the same—with respect—from the president of the company to the cleaning lady. Never had a bad word to say about anyone. I still get teary when I think about him.

Janice Chiang: I was waiting for permission to go to lunch and Danny was on the phone cleaning and fine tuning the letterforms (of some cover lettering). I learned my most important lesson at his elbow. I watch for fifteen minutes as it was transformed to the final version. When hand or digital lettering sound effects, I don’t stop until I’m satisfied with it. Danny’s other valuable piece of advice was “Don’t burn any bridges.”

Tom Orzechowski: Danny’s title and blurb work was wonderfully right between Sam Rosen and Gaspar Saladino.

Dave Hunt: Everybody loved Danny including me. Marie Severin used to love to do cartoon caricatures of him.

Howard Bender: If it wasn’t for Danny I never would have had a job at Marvel, Danny was the one who hired me. God bless him.

Mike Carlin: Loved Danny! Loved this book o’ lettering, too!

Scott Edelman: Danny was one of the nicest guys in the world, even though when Mike Esposito, who was doing art corrections in the Bullpen back then, grandiosely said, “In six months, I’ll be running this company,” Danny quickly quipped, “Yeah. Into the ground.”

Clem Robins: Danny was a wonderful man. When I met his daughter Susan a few years ago, I said I felt like she was my sister, because Danny was like a father to me. She answered that people tell her that all the time.

Nel Yomtov: I owe Danny quite a lot, not only professionally, but personally as well. My favorite uncle—we were very close.

I’m sorry I never met Danny myself. This time I’ll be looking at pages 5 to 8 of the Phil Felix collection.

PAGE 5. This and all following images © Marvel.

I believe this is all by Danny except the one at lower right, which is by Gaspar Saladino. That one has a ragged burst border style that Gaspar used and Danny did not, and the letters are narrower and more angular. The open spots in the A and O of ACTION have thinner outlines, a technique Gaspar used, and the lower case I  is also something he did occasionally. The rest has typical Crespi very wide standard lettering and generally more rounded open lettering. The burst shapes are also typical of Danny. Thanks to Jose Marzan Jr. and Nicholas Caputo for identification help.

“FIRST ISSUE!” is from GIANT-SIZE INVADERS #1, June 1975.

“THE GREMLIN” is from THE INCREDIBLE HULK #188, June 1975.

“SMASH!” from MARVEL TEAM-UP #27, Nov. 1974.

“STARTLING” from STRANGE TALES #178, Feb. 1975. Note that the white letters on lavender do not read very well, the original lettering in black and white looks much better.

“ULIK” and the balloon next to it from THOR #237, May 1975. The round caption was on Page 3 of the Phil Felix collection.

PAGE 6. These are all by Danny Crespi except the top left, which is by Gaspar Saladino. Comparing that one to the Crespi below is interesting. First, look how much larger Danny was working than Gaspar. Danny liked to extend the borders of his captions beyond the corners. All this cover lettering was photostatted (copied onto glossy photo paper) at the size needed, then cut out and pasted onto the original cover art. I think by extending the caption borders, Danny was able to get crisp, pointed corners when he trimmed the edges of the photostat, removing the excess lines. An easier way to get very precise corners than with a lettering pen. Gaspar’s regular lettering was wider than many other letterers, but still looks narrow compared to Danny’s, the widest I’ve seen. And the rough double border on that upper left caption is something Gaspar often did.

That square caption is from DOCTOR STRANGE #7, April 1975.

“CASTLE FRANKENSTEIN” by Gaspar is from FRANKENSTEIN #17, July 1975.

“DESTROY THE HUMAN TORCH” is from HUMAN TORCH #8, Nov. 1975.

Balloon and burst from THE RINGO KID #25, Jan. 1976.

PAGE 7. All by Danny Crespi, I believe. DIE and DIES are two of the most common words on comics covers, and hard to track down. I found a few.

“The old lady DIES!” from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #146, July 1975.

The square caption is from DAREDEVIL #122, June 1975.

“BLACK BASSETT!” from KID COLD OUTLAW #195, June 1975. Note that even when balloons were connected on the cover, the balloon/caption borders were finished completely and lettered as separate pieces. This gave the production person putting the lettering on the cover the most flexibility in placement. Once the joined balloons were pasted down, the joined area was opened up by cutting out that part of the outline, or covering it with white paint.

“ACTION-LOVERS” from MARVEL DOUBLE FEATURE #8, Feb. 1975.

“The web-slinger DIES!” from MARVEL TEAM-UP #39, Nov. 1975. Note also that the balloon tails were not drawn by Danny when he lettered these, but were added after the lettering photostats were pasted on the covers. Again, this was to allow maximum flexibility in placement. A good idea, I never did it myself when I lettered covers, I always put the tails in.

Two thought balloons from WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS #30, July 1975. These two WERE connected by Danny, but the tail of bubbles was added later.

PAGE 8. I haven’t found many of these. I believe they are all by Danny Crespi except the one at bottom center, which is by Gaspar Saladino. Some of the open lettering outline techniques used by Danny here show the influence of Gaspar, who was always studied by other letterers. Jim Novak called Gaspar “The Master,” a nickname I agree with. In researching these pages, I’ve come to a much greater appreciation of Danny’s work too.

“AND SHIELD SHALL FOLLOW!” is from INCREDIBLE HULK #199, May 1976. The original looks better than this reversed version with the letters white on black.

“SPEAR” from POWER MAN #33, July 1976. Dark blue is not a good choice to fill open letters with, it makes them hard to read.

Here’s that Gaspar balloon on THOR #246, April 1976. The rest of the lettering confirms it, very Gaspar. And that’s all I could find on this page.

More to come, when I have time to research them. This and other articles you might enjoy are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.