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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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No rants this week, folks. Give ‘em what they’re not expecting, I say. Besides, I received a ton of books to read in the past couple weeks and just want to dig into them, finish off some other commitments and keep pushing. As it often happens, though, even with this miniscule Intro and just three reviews, the column’s running a mite long, so let’s get to it.
Ortiz, who at least cowrites and lays out or pencils nearly everything here, has an obvious love for many of the comics of the 50s and 60s, but he always has the talent and ideas to make something fresh from his influences. The first issue begins with “The End,” a skull-faced phantom of justice, in what’s more accurately a Golden Age-influenced crime story involving two rival ganglords, “The Snake” and “The Zombie.” It’s as violent as many of those pre-Code stories were, so it’s something of an odd choice given that the cover of the book really looks like it would appeal to all ages, but it’s a good story with a nice twist, something like “The Spirit” if it was an EC book, and with some figures and layouts right out of Jack Davis, who isn’t an artist referenced much at all anymore, unfortunately. There’s a one-page statement of principles from the editor about comics heroes not being very heroic anymore and the stories not being very fun, as one might expect, and then the most successful of the serialized stories, “SeaBolt,” launches. Ortiz draws this one again, in a style that marries bits of Buscema, Kubert, Colan, and some angular Adams panel shapes, with a lot of ominous gray backgrounds, since it’s underwater. In five pages, we meet the superhero SeaBolt, who lost his legs in a shark accident and now wears a mechanical fishtail and helmet to keep the seas safe, and he’s captured by strange, water-breathing talking gorilla who’s kind of a mix of Grodd and Attuma. If I’m dropping too many names, the point is just that Ortiz is a solid artist and writer who has synthesized his many influences to make something that stands on its own. Over the next three issues, SeaBolt remains the standout story, though ironically with little in the way of characterization. There is a prolonged, fairly interesting origin serial, as a galactic champion named Man-Star (that’s Dr. Sauren Man-Star to you) crosses his planet’s line in killing someone his instincts correctly tell him is a villain, but he had no proof. By the end, he is exiled, where contact with some cosmic rays or the equivalent turn him into the gargoyle-like Doctor Monster. I really don’t care for the design, and much preferred the Curt Swan look to Man-Star and his planet, and wished we could have continued with his stories before the change. Vince Musacchia pencils and inks chapters 1 and 2 competently, and with some good inking, but it’s a bit too cartoony for what is a pretty heavy story. “The Man Called Santa” is amusing but not really successful story where Santa is a driven, masked and muscled hero in the service of E.L.F. (and boy, do they try hard to make that acronym work) who goes after some invading Martians and finds himself waylaid and possessed by Satan, only to be rescued by Rudolf the Laser-Nosed Reindeer. The only saving grace is the art, which is an amusing mix of Timm or Oeming with Kirby foreshortening and poses. Better is “Cloud-Buster,” also Kirby-influenced in the art when Ortiz draws it but more interesting when Scott Seeto takes over those duties.
While it wouldn’t be a bad idea for there to be at least one complete story per issue, at least there is very little that feels like filler here, though I confess to not reading the text-with-illos “The End” story in #4. Ortiz is the mastermind here, as not just the main creative force but also the publisher, and though for the most part he’s up to the task of providing the majority of the content, he could’ve used some stronger editing here. Not just for the chronic misuse of “it’s” for “its,” but because for all the talk in that first issue’s editorial about the darkening of superheroes, several of the heroes here are motivated by vengeance, including two who lost their wives. It works for Cloud-Buster, especially as he’s the type of soul-trapped-in-metal-shell-trying-to-hold-onto-humanity type of character, but it’s a bad fit for Santa Claus, you know? Also, both Cloud-Buster and SeaBolt live in worlds where they’re up against shadowy, widespread organizations actively involved in mutations. A little more variety in these story elements would help, as well as a slightly lighter tone. The packaging is excellent, though, utilizing greats of yesteryear like Nick Cardy, George Tuska and even Frank Brunner, and the inner covers and Stan Lee-esque intros and narrations are done with love and wit. Good stuff. Silver Comics. $2.95
Stillwater, a giant, speaking Panda, moves into the neighborhood of Addy, Michael and Karl, and the children quickly get over their apprehension and spend some time with him, listening to three short parables. “Uncle Ry and the Moon” is about a would-be burglar given the robe off the homeowner’s back. This action represents a level of giving few Westerners could comprehend, but one can of course take as much inspiration as one is able to put into practice. “The Farmer’s Luck” is about putting life and its apparent ups and seeming downs into perspective. There is no such thing as good or bad luck, just moments following other moments, hope out of sadness out of hope and on and on. The stories, which Muth illustrates with brush on pale blue paper, all flow from Stillwater as reflections on the worries of each child. This is most evident in the last tale, “A Heavy Load,” about a monk instantly getting over the arrogance, rudeness and ingratitude of a woman he carried across a puddle, while the younger monk traveling with him stews over the indignity all day, just as Karl stews over his older brother Michael always telling him what to do. Although the connection between the stories is obvious, forgiveness and living in the moment and not the past are central tenets of Buddhism, and in fact this moral will likely be the easiest for children to understand. Muth has taken deeply held beliefs and created a beautifully illustrated, gentle and wise book suitable and highly recommended for all ages. Scholastic Press. $16.95 What Were They Thinking?! By Keith Giffen, Mike Leib and Wally Wood. I hesitated writing Wood’s name there, because he really had no say in the creation of this comic, which uses an old WWII-themed comic he and his studio mates put together in I suppose the mid 60s, probably an issue of War or Attack for Charlton. It’s a little like using dead Fred Astaire to sell vacuum cleaners, but okay, we’re going for laughs rather than just commerce here, so let’s see what it’s about. The story goes that Giffen found the book in a flea market and had the idea to “desecrate” it, and he and Leib wrote all-new dialogue for the three stories inside, a la What’s Up, Tiger Lily? or several romance comic make-overs from the past few years. Fun idea. But the execution? Oh my. The first story's premise is that the soldiers of “Coyote Ugly Company” are really just ugly women trying to find men to marry. From the opening menstrual gags, this one is painful from the get-go. Any cramping experienced will not be from excessive laughter, I guarantee you. The second story, “The War Next Door,” is about a dumb GI who instead of rescuing a French spy masquerading as a Nazi, takes a real Nazi back to headquarters. I had one genuine laugh here, when Giffen breaks the “fourth wall” after the soldier hears the man he thinks he’s been sent to rescue, and says, “His word balloon! Butchered English! What a stroke of luck!”After that, it’s the same joke over and over, and the reader will likely just be grooving on the Wood-drawn artillery, jets, explosions, etc. “Hearts and Minds” finds another lone soldier on a dangerous mission, this one to rescue some little natives on an island, Itti Bitti, overrun by Japanese (Guadalcanal maybe?) and they're pissed that the US saw fit to just send one. The mildly effective humor comes from the racism and jingoism of the GI, played up by the writers but one senses, inherent in the original story, and the natives making fun of him in their own language. That's the only story that barely works, at a Cracked level. The fourth and final tale adds gay dialogue to a straightforward paratrooper mission and is almost as tedious as the first. It’s called, “Don’t Ask! Don’t Tell!”, which is a fair indication of te flopsweat emanating from this book. For many, the labored jokes will be almost beside the point here, as it’s true this is a cheap way to sample Wood artwork. However, the art is far from prime Wood, obviously being inked by diverse hands and probably in a hurry, but there are some very nice panels here and there and some dynamic compositions on every page that artists today could learn from. The pages look authentically yellowed and with some marks on the pages that suggest this really was scanned from the printed comic, with the rejiggered word balloons yellowed to match, and that works very well, with just a couple cases where the balloons are too white. Fine idea, poor execution. Boom! Studios. $3.99 P.S. Hard to pick what’s coming next week, but strong contenders are Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Vol. 3; Kinetic; Marvel Visionaries: John Romita, Sr., and maybe What Were They Thinking?!, again, to catch more nuances.
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Silver Comics #1-4 by Johnny Ortiz, Various. As much as I might be concerned these days with pushing comix forward, and the possibilities for my criticism to do the same, I’ve always felt the first rule was that something has to be good. Silver Comics is a new anthology series clearly indebted to the characters, stories and storytelling styles of the Silver Age of Comics, and one could certainly argue that looking back is no way to go forward, but it’s all about talent and execution and enough originality that the stories don’t seem like rip-offs or pale imitations of obvious forebears. 
Issues 3 and 4 elevate the book in quality, not merely by adding more features and pages (48 for just $2.95), but by adding more diverse talents and characters. The highlight of #3 is the “Crimson Mask,” by Ruben Procopio, a longtime Disney animator as well as a sculptor with DC Direct as one of his major clients. Procopio is also a friend and protégé of Alex Toth, and the Mask story is a moody crime story much in line with Toth’s style, though it would have been more effective in stark black and white rather than with the muddy graytones added to it. Toth contributes a rare pin-up, as does Steve Rude and other Procopio friend George Perez, who also helps out with some of the scripting. If it was just for the friends he brings to the party, Procopio would have been a nice addition, but it’s a decent story with good art and an appealing, Times New Roman font used in the captions, emphasizing the pulp feel. Oddly, the “death” of Crimson Mask leads to the beginning, in #4, of his next incarnation, the superhero Chameleon Man. Kinda neat how they’re both “C-M”s, and it’s fun how the young crimefighter’s father and sister not only know what he does, they even come up with his costume while he’s still recuperating in the hospital. I would like more Crimson Mask stories, too, but Chameleon Man is fine, like a lost 70s Charlton character if Charlton subbed out their work to a shop in Argentina.
Zen Shorts is the latest children’s book from Jon J Muth, whom comics fans will recall mainly for Moonshadow, one of the earlier “maxiseries” and painted comics, written by J. M. DeMatteis. Comics’ loss is literature’s gain, and most will agree with one glance at the contents of this book that Muth’s delicate watercolor art is better utilized here than on a Wolverine or Wonder Woman graphic novel.