The Daily Comic Book Coffee, Part Seven

The challenge: Pick a subject and find a different artist every day for that subject.  I chose “coffee.” From the work of how many comic book artists can I find examples of people drinking coffee?  I post these daily on Facebook, and collect them together here.

31) Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott

“The Mind of the Monster” from Giant-Size Super-Stars #1, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Joe Sinnott, written by Gerry Conway, lettered by Artie Simek, and colored by Petra Goldberg, published by Marvel Comics with a May 1974 cover date.

The Incredible Hulk leaps into Manhattan and passes out in a deserted alley.  Transforming back into Bruce Banner, the cursed scientist heads over to the Fantastic Four’s Baxter Building headquarters, hoping Reed Richards can find a cure for his condition.  Only Ben Grimm, the Thing, is home, but he welcomes Bruce, telling him “Guy’s like us’ve gotta stick together.”

The Thing asks the frazzled Banner “Ya want some java?”  A grateful Banner accepts, and the Thing brews him a cup of coffee using some weird-looking Kirby-tech.  “Don’t look at me, Banner — it’s one’a Stretcho’s dohickeys.”  Yeah, leave it to Reed Richards to take something as simple as a coffee maker and transform it into a ridiculously complicated device!

The Think lets slip that Reed was recently working on a “psi-amplifier” to restore his lost humanity.  An eager Banner decides that with a few modifications the device can cure both of them in one shot.  Unfortunately they don’t wait for Reed to return before proceeding with the experiment, and of course something goes wrong.  Next thing you know, we have another epic battle between the Hulk and the Thing, but with a twist: the Thing’s mind is in the body of the Hulk, and vise versa.  Hilarity ensues… hilarity and several million dollars worth of property damage.

As explained by editor Roy Thomas in a text piece, Giant-Size Super-Stars was a monthly oversized title that would rotate through three features: the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and Conan the Barbarian.  After this issue was released Marvel changed their plans.  Spider-Man and Conan both received their own quarterly Giant-Size series, and Giant-Size Super-Stars also became quarterly, renamed Giant-Size Fantastic Four with issue #2.

The creators behind “The Mind of the Monster” were the regular Fantastic Four team: writer Gerry Conway, penciler Rich Buckler, and inker Joe Sinnott.  They all do good work on this entertaining tale of swapped identities and smashed buildings.  Buckler does a fine job showing via facial expressions and body language that the Thing and the Hulk have switched bodies.  Longtime FF inker Sinnott does his usual great work finishing the art.

32) Rick Burchett 

Presenting a double dose of caffeinated cliffhangers starring those two-fisted aviators the Blackhawks!  Action Comics Weekly #632 is cover-dated December 1987, and Blackhawk #2 is cover-dated April 1989.  Both stories are by the creative team of artist Rick Burchett, writer Martin Pasko, letterer Steve Haynie, and colorist Tom Ziuko, published by DC Comics.

I was sad to hear that longtime comic book writer Martin Pasko had passed away on May 10th at the age of 65.  Among the numerous characters Pasko worked on was the revamp of the Blackhawks conceived by Howard Chaykin.  Pasko chronicled the aviation adventures of Janos Prohaska and Co in serials published in Action Comics Weekly, and then in an all-too-short lived Blackhawk ongoing series.

Pasko was paired with the great, underrated artist Rick Burchett.  I’ve always enjoyed Burchett’s art.  His style is simultaneously cartoony yet possessed of a sort of gritty verisimilitude (I hope I’m articulating that in an accurate manner).  Pasko & Burchett chronicled the Blackhawk’s post World War II adventures which saw the ace pilots becoming embroiled in the Cold War anti-Communist activities of the newly-formed CIA.

Within the pages of the Action Comics Weekly #632, the Blackhawks have been tasked with transporting chemist Constance Darabont to West Berlin to pick up an experimental batch of LSD.  Unfortunately for Prosahka and his team Constance is murdered in Berlin and replaced by Nazi war criminal Gretchen Koblenz.  On the flight back the diabolical Gretchen spikes the Blackhawks’ coffee with the LSD, pulling a gun on Olaf Friedriksen when her deadly ruse is discovered!

Blackhawk #2 ends on a much less life-threatening note, but certainly one that is just as dramatic.  Over morning coffee Janos and the Blackhawks’ assistant director Mairzey ponder the current whereabouts of the missing Natalie Reed, as well as wondering what will become of Natalie’s infant son.  Mairzey tells Janos that she has been considering adopting the baby.  Suddenly an unidentified figure enters the room and announces “I was always afraid to tell you this before… but I’m the father of Natalie’s baby…”

(Cue melodramatic music!!!)

The Blackhawk serials written by Grell & Pasko and drawn by Burchett were among the best material to run in Action Comics Weekly.  I’m happy they’ve finally been collected together with the excellent Blackhawk miniseries by Chaykin.  Hopefully a second collected edition will reprint the ongoing series by Pasko & Burchett.

33) Jack Davis

Today’s art comes from “Dig That Cat… He’s Real Gone” in The Haunt of Fear #21, drawn by Jack Davis, written by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines, lettered by Jim Wroten, and colored by Marie Severin, published by EC Comics with a Sept-Oct 1953 cover date.

When I was a kid I preferred the sci-fi stories from Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, but as I got older I developed a taste for EC’s horror titles.  I guess my dry, offbeat sense of humor came to align more closely with EC’s macabre pun-cracking horror hosts.

“Dig That Cat… He’s Real Gone” is the story of Ulric the Undying, who makes his fortune staging very public, very violent deaths from which he miraculously recovers each time.  In a flashback, we see that Ulric was previously a nameless bum on skid row who was approached by Dr. Emil Manfred.  Over a cup of coffee, Manfred claimed that he had discovered the secret of a cat’s nine lives, and offered to surgically transplant that ability into the bum, with the end goal of gaining wealth & fame.  Manfred is successful and “Ulric the Undying” is created, but this being an EC horror story, of course things eventually take a very nasty turn for all involved.

Jack Davis was a frequent contributor to EC’s horror anthologies, illustrating many of their most famous, or perhaps infamous, stories.  Davis was certainly adept at creating moody atmospheres perfectly suited to Al Feldstein’s scripts.  His artwork was also appeared regularly in EC’s satirical comic books Mad and Panic.  Following the demise of EC’s comic book line he drew trading cards for Topps.  From the 1960s onward David, who was renowned for his caricatures, did a great deal of advertising work, movie posters and magazine covers.  He passed away in 2016 at the age of 91.

34) Ross Andru & Frank Giacoia

Amazing Spider-Man #184, penciled by Ross Andru, inked by Frank Giacoia, written & edited by Marv Wolfman, lettered by John Costanza, and colored by Glynis Wein, published by Marvel Comics with a September 1978 cover date.

I recently learned of this storyline thanks to Brian Cronin of Comic Book Resources.  In the previous issue Peter Parker had asked Mary Jane Watson to marry him, but she turned him down.  A despondent Peter returned home, only to discover someone was waiting for him in his apartment!  On the splash page of this issue, we discover who: Betty Brant, secretary to Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, and Peter’s girlfriend from way back when.  Betty, who is all glammed up, has let herself into Peter’s apartment and made herself a cup of coffee to await his return.  Now that he’s home, Betty greets him with a very warm welcome.

There’s just one itsy-bitsy problem here: Betty married Ned Leeds a few weeks earlier, and she is supposed to be in Europe with him on their honeymoon.

Yeah, that’s the old Parker luck at work, all right.  You propose to the woman you love but she turns you down, and when you return home you find your recently-married ex-girlfriend has broken into your place, raided your supply of coffee, and is looking to have a fling with you.  Oy vey!

The subplot of Betty attempting to hook up with Peter, and Peter being very tempted in spite of that whole “just married” thing, went on for nearly a year.  I’m sure it comes as no surprise that it all ends badly for poor Peter.

Penciling this tale of torrid emotions and pilfered caffeine is veteran comic book artist Ross Andru.  After two decades of working for DC Comics on such titles as Wonder Woman, G.I. Combat, The Flash and Metal Men (the last which he co-created with writer Robert Kanigher), Andru came to Marvel in 1971.  He penciled Amazing Spider-Man for five years, from 1973 to 1978; this was one of his last issues.  Andru is paired here with well-regarded inker Frank Giacoia, who had previously embellished ASM during the early part of Andru’s half-decade run.

35) Alex Saviuk & Al Wlliamson

Web of Spider-Man #91, penciled by Alex Saviuk, inked by Al Williamson, written by Howard Mackie, lettered by Rick Parker, and colored by Bob Sharen, published by Marvel Comics with an August 1992 cover date.

Following up on our last entry, it’s another Spider-Man page featuring Peter Parker, Betty Brant, coffee and… oh no, Betty’s throwing herself at Peter again, isn’t she?

Okay, what’s actually going on here is that Betty has been working undercover on a story for the Daily Bugle.  She’s investigating the organization belonging to the international assassin the Foreigner, the man behind the murder of her husband Ned Leeds.  When Betty happens to run into Peter in the street she locks lips with him and drags him into a nearby diner so that she can give him the information she’s been collecting to pass on to Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson.  Unfortunately the people who are following Betty see through her ruse and attack the coffee shop.  What follows is Spider-Man spending the rest of the issue trading blows with a pair of the Foreigner’s armored goons in the java joint, which of course gets demolished.  I hope the owners had their insurance premiums paid up!

Betty had spent a long time after her husband’s death traumatized & vulnerable.  This was the beginning of a new direction for her, as she quit being Jonah’s secretary, became more assertive, and began a career as an investigative journalist for the Bugle.

The pencils are by Alex Saviuk, a really good artist who had a long run on Web of Spider-Man, from 1988 to 1994.  I think Saviuk’s seven year stint on often gets overlooked because this was at the same time McFarlane, Larsen and Bagley were also drawing the character, and with their more dynamic, flashy styles they consequently receiving more attention.  That is a shame, because Saviuk turned in solid, quality work on Web of Spider-Man.  I enjoyed his depiction of the character.

As we can see from this page, Saviuk was also really good at rendering the soap opera and non-costumed sequences that are part-and-parcel of Peter Parker’s tumultuous personal life.

Looking at the recent Blackhawks series from DC Comics

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I intended to go back and pick up the first four issues of the Blackhawks series published by DC Comics as part of their New 52 re-launch.  I found copies of those comics, and the final issue of the series, #8, came out last week.  So I’ve been able to take a look at the short-lived series as a whole, and put together a few thoughts.

Writer Mike Costa obviously put a great deal of thought and planning into this series.  It appears that he had developed personalities and back stories for the cast which he intended to elaborate upon over time.  Unfortunately, the sudden cancelation of Blackhawks put an end to those plans.  That’s really regrettable.  I would have enjoyed learning more about the team, especially Andrew Lincoln and the new Lady Blackhawk, who Costa never really had the chance to examine, leaving both of them enigmas.

Costa also utilized some cutting-edge scientific theory in the series.  He seems to have done some serious research into technology and hardware, giving the book a very authentic-sounding feel.  Nanocites, microscopic machines that could enter the body and manipulate it, jump-starting evolution at an ordered, lightning progression, are a key element to his eight issue arc.

The area where Blackhawks falls short is in the artwork department.  The first four issues feature pencil layouts by Graham Nolan, and he does a very good job with these.  However, each of these issues has a different inker / finisher.  The result is a very inconsistent look to the artwork on the first four issues.  Really, it would have been better to let Nolan do full pencils and then pair him with a talented inker such as Scott Hanna.  The two of them worked very well together on Detective Comics back during the “Knightfall” storylines.  Reuniting them on Blackhawks could have given the series some high-quality art.

It’s a bit of a pity that Ken Lashley, who drew some nice covers for issue #s 1-7, wasn’t able to do more interior work.  He provided the finishes for the first issue, and the results were quite good.

This situation with the artwork greatly improved with issue #5, when CAFU and Bit came onboard as the new regular art team.  In addition to finally giving Blackhawks some much-needed consistency in the art department, their work was extremely well done.  CAFU had very good storytelling to his work, and he gave the characters real emotional qualities.  The inking by Bit was especially polished.  I wonder if, had they been the art team starting with the very first issue, sales would have been better and the series might not have been canceled.

Then again, as I mentioned in my previous post, I feel that Blackhawks got lost in the shuffle of the gigantic New 52 release.  DC debuted eight different Batman-related series last autumn.  I really don’t know if it was necessary to have that many.  This fixation with the number 52 on DC’s part really led to a glut of new titles, and most readers probably paid much more attention to the numerous titles tying in with Batman, Superman, and Justice League.  If there hadn’t been so many of those, other titles such as Blackhawks might have stood out more.  I mean, the only reason I ended up reading Blackhawks is because CAFU and Bit did that signing at Midtown Comics.  If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have given the series a try, and I would have had no idea that I had missed out on a really great read.

This touches upon a huge criticism I have of DC as well as Marvel.  Both companies will promote to death titles like Justice League by Geoff Johns & Jim Lee, or all those Batman books, which are guaranteed to be big hits in any case.  But they will give little exposure to a series like Blackhawks, leaving it to sink or swim on its own.

Thinking about this, I have no idea if there are any other New 52 titles that I have not given a chance which might actually be enjoyable.  But I simply do not have the time or, more importantly, the money, to try all of them.  So, yeah, I have to rely on word of mouth from reviewers or, in this case, a signing at a comic book store, to catch my attention.

Okay, end of that rant… for now.  I know I will be returning to in a future post, when I write about what comic book series I am currently reading.  In the meantime, getting back to Blackhawks, it was an exciting title with intelligent writing by Mike Costa, plus some superb art from CAFU & Bit on the second half.  If you have not read it, I recommend tracking down those eight issues.  They’re a fun read.

Blackhawks Down(town) at Midtown Comics

Yesterday evening I went to the Midtown Comics located on Fulton Street (which would technically make it “Downtown Comics,” I guess) for the latest of their comic book creator signing events.  Midtown was having two artists from Madrid, Spain at the store to autograph copies of the latest issue of Blackhawks, one of the “New 52” titles from from DC Comics.  CAFU (short for Carlos Alberto Fernandez Urbano) and Bit became the art team on Blackhawks with issue #5.

To be honest, previously I had not been following Blackhawks, or really most any of the other New 52 series from DC.  The only two I’ve been reading month after month beginning with the first issue were Wonder Woman and Justice League International.  And even there, I’ve been seeing how each series has been from one issue to the next, sort of half-committed.  So Blackhawks definitely fell under the radar along with the rest of the New 52.  But when I heard that CAFU and Bit would be in town to sign issue #7, I picked up the previous two issues, which they also illustrated.

The event at Midtown was, in a certain respect, a bit of a disappointment.  The store had promoted it by announcing that each person who purchased a copy of Blackhawks #7 would be able to get a free sketch from both CAFU and Bit.  Unfortunately, the artists were only able to sign and sketch for one hour, from 6:00 to 7:00 PM, and they turned out to be drawing more slowly than the store probably thought they would be.  I think only the first six or seven people in line got a sketch.  I was not one of them.

Truth be told, I did not especially mind.  Yes, it was disappointing, but I shrugged it off because I was able to meet a couple of talented artists who only visit the States maybe once or twice a year.  I got several books autographed, including two issues of Marvel Adventures: Avengers that CAFU penciled in 2007.

Listening to some of the other people on line, though, I was amused at how big a deal it seemed to them.  Some people were of the attitude that they wasted their money (three whole dollars) and weren’t getting anything in return, that the book was no good, that Midtown was just doing this to drum up some sales on a title which is scheduled to be canceled in another month.  I think the lesson here is that if you are going to a comic book store signing, it should be for book that you are potentially interested in, or by a creator whose work you like.  That way, if you do not end up with a sketch, at least you will have still gotten an autographed book that will mean something to you.

I want to add that this is the first time I remember anything like this ever happening at Midtown Comics.  In the past, if they have promoted a signing to include sketches from artists, I don’t recall anyone walking away empty-handed.  So I just view this as a one-time occurrence.

Of course, maybe I am feeling charitable because at last year’s Spanish Inq signing event, when Bit was in NYC with Pere Perez, he drew a very nice sketch of Wonder Woman for me.  So I already had something by him in my sketchbook.

In any case, what do I actually think of the Blackhawks series?  CAFU and Bit’s artwork is stunning.  But, more to the point, I am impressed by Mike Costa’s writing.  It is not especially groundbreaking or revolutionary, but there is a fun and intelligence to it.  I like the idea of an international “black ops” type group of normal humans tasked with facing down technological menaces within the DC universe.  Judging solely by the three issues I have read, I feel the concept by Costa is sound and full of a great deal of potential, but perhaps the execution is lacking.  There is also an absence of details explaining who these characters are, and what exactly had taken place within the first story arc, which did not make them “new reader friendly.”  Having said that, I am intrigued enough that I am currently searching for copies of those initial four issues, to see what happened in them.

Blackhawks is being canceled with issue #8.  This is something of a pity.  As I said before, the concept holds much promise.  I like the characters, and if they survive the finale of the series it would be cool to see them resurface in some of DC’s other titles.  The art team of CAFU and Bit is really outstanding, and I look forward to seeing them receive another series to illustrate, hopefully soon.