Welcome to the 14th edition of Comic Book Coffee. I previously posted these daily in the Comic Book Historians group on Facebook. The challenge posed by group moderator Jim Thompson was to pick a subject and find a different artist every day for that subject. The subject I chose was Coffee.
66) Ramón Torrents
“Good to the Last Drop” was drawn by Ramón Torrents and written by Martin Pasko. It appeared in Vampirella #36, released by Warren Publishing in September 1974.
Christina Kavanaugh, heiress to the Miller Foods fortune, has been having an affair with Bill Wright, VP of Product Improvement. Unfortunately her husband Jim, current President of Miller Foods, has just found out. As we see, Jim reacts badly to the news, brutally slapping Christina while she is having her morning coffee. Jim slaps his wife so hard that she hits her head against the grandfather clock, causing her death. This leads the grieving, still-jealous Jim to embark on a very twisted plot to gain revenge on Bill Wright, a scheme that centers on Miller Foods’ production of freeze dried coffee. Fortunately by the end of this grim little tale karma has boomeranged back on Jim, leading him to a fitting end.
“Good to the Last Drop” appears to have afforded Martin Pasko an opportunity to let his very skewed, offbeat sense of humor go extremely wild. The story is effectively illustrated by Ramón Torrents, a Spanish artist who had previously worked for British publishers Fleetway and D.C. Thompson on several romance titles in the 1960s, followed by short horror stories for American publisher Skywald in the early 1970s. Torrents drew a number of stories for Warren that saw print in Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie and between 1973 and 1979. Reportedly he left the comic book field at the end of that decade.
67) Dan DeCarlo & Rudy Lapick
“Power Shortage” from Sabrina the Teenage Witch #60, penciled by Dan DeCarlo, inked by Rudy Lapick, written by Frank Doyle, lettered by Bill Yashida, and colored by Barry Grossman, published by Archie Comics in June 1980.
Sabrina and her boyfriend Harvey are walking home from school when they see a flying carpet whiz by carrying groceries. Sabrina rushes home and demands to know why her Aunt Hilda is using a flying carpet during the middle of the day. Hilda explains that she forgot her weekly magical recharge again. She doesn’t have the power to just “zap” some groceries home like she usually does, and needs to rely on the carpet. To demonstrate her weakened power, Hilda attempts to levitate her coffee cup over, and it crashes to the floor. Sabrina tells her Aunt she had better get a recharge soon. Hilda then realizes that she forgot to pick up lemons at the market, and she sends the flying carpet out again. Naturally enough, hilarity ensues.
Dan DeCarlo was definitely adept at drawing comedy. His style was very well suited to Archie Comics, where he did great work for nearly half a century, from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. For many years DeCarlo’s art served as the basis for the company’s house style. Sabrina the Teenage Witch was one of the characters he had a hand in creating.
68) Mike Zeck & Denis Rodier
Damned #3, penciled by Mike Zeck, inked by Denis Rodier, written by Steven Grant, and colored by Kurt Goldzung, published by Image Comics in August 1997.
Damned features the recently-paroled Mick Thorne, who is attempting to deliver a message to the sister of his deceased cellmate Doug Orton. Unfortunately, New Covenant crime boss Silver believes that Mick knows the location of the fortune that Doug stole from the mob before going to prison. Mick has to avoid Silver’s thugs while trying to locate Doug’s elusive sister.
In this scene Charlotte Dahl of the State Parole Office is working late, attempting to track down Mick, as well as figure out who murdered Mick’s parole officer. Drinking coffee to keep awake, Charlotte and her assistant begin looking through the files of other ex-cons who are now in New Covenant, searching for any kind of link to Mick.
Damned was a four issue crime noir miniseries that reunited Steven Grant and Mike Zeck, the creative team that had successfully launched the Punisher into super-stardom a decade earlier. Damned was collected together by Cybrosia Publishing in 2003 with a new epilogue by Grant & Zeck and behind-the-scenes material. The collected edition was reissued in 2013 by BOOM! Studios.
I’m a huge fan of Zeck, and I really enjoyed his work on this miniseries. Rodier’s inking was a good fit for the tone of the story. I definitely recommend picking up the trade paperback.
69) Art Saaf & Vince Colletta
“Never a Bride to Be” from Falling In Love #117, penciled by Art Saaf and inked by Vince Colletta, published by DC Comics in August 1970.
Another coffee page from a romance story? What is it with people drinking coffee in romance comics? Maybe that’s why everyone is so emotional and melodramatic; too much caffeine!
Lisa, the boss’ daughter, has invited young, handsome British engineer Derek over to dinner with her family. It’s all part of a plan to try to get Derek interested in Lisa’s shy sister Dottie. Derek and Dottie are soon dating, but Dottie is worried that Lisa is going to try to steal him away. Indeed, Lisa soon realizes that she is attracted to Derek after all. What’s a girl to do?
Art Saaf’s career stretched back to the Golden Age. He did a great deal of work for Fiction House throughout the 1940s, and then for Standard Comics in the late 1940s and early 50s. In the mid 1950s Saaf began working in television; among his jobs was creating storyboards for The Jackie Gleason Show. He did feelance advertising work throughout the 1960s, and returned to comic books at the end of the decade. Between 1969 and 1974 he drew a number of romance stories for DC Comics, several issues of Supergirl, and a handful of war and horror tales.
Saaf is paired here with Vince Colletta, one of his regular inkers at DC. Colletta’s inking is fairly heavy, but you can still perceive Saaf’s expert storytelling and use of facial expressions & body language to establish the personalities of the characters. He certainly does an excellent job differentiating between the outgoing Lisa and introverted Dottie here. I like the awkward humor of those bottom two panels and Lisa and her parents none-too-subtly leave Dottie and Derek to have coffee alone together.
Saaf and Colletta both excelled at drawing beautiful women, so pairing them up was perhaps an inspired choice, after all. Romance comics historian Jacque Nodell expressed a fondness for their collaborations on her blog Sequential Crush.
70) Sergio Cariello & James Pascoe
Here are two coffee-drinking pages from Azrael: Agent of the Bat penciled by Denny O’Neil, penciled by Sergio Cariello, and colored by Rob Ro & Alex Bleyaert, from DC Comics. Issue #83 was inked by James Pascoe and lettered by Ken Bruzenak, published December 2001. Issue #99 was inked by Cariello and lettered by Jack Morelli, published April 2003.
On the first page Lilhy, a member of the sinister Order of St. Dumas, seeks to understand the nature of evil. She visits the Joker, currently incarcerated at the maximum security prison the Slab, to see if the insane super-villain can offer any insights. Unfortunately she arrives just as the Joker releases a modified form of his “Joker venom” that transforms everyone in the Slab into doppelgangers of the Clown Prince of Crime.
The now-Jokerized Lilhy returns to Gotham City, where she meets with the psychiatrist Bryan. Over coffee Bryan attempts to explain to Lilhy that humanity has struggled to understand the nature of evil throughout its entire existence.
On the second page Azrael, aka Jean-Paul Valley, is meeting with Dr. Leslie Thompkins, who has recently been treating him. Due to the genetic manipulation and brainwashing inflicted upon Jean-Paul in his childhood by the Order, he has been experiencing serious health issues, as well as another bout of mental instability. It appears that at long last Jean-Paul has finally stabilized, both physically and psychologically. Over coffee with Leslie, the directionless Jean-Paul wonders what to do next. She urges him to try to live his own life, and find happiness.
“The Evil Men Do” and “Last Respects” are written by the legendary Denny O’Neil, who passed away in June at the age of 81. O’Neil co-created Azrael and wrote the entirety of the character’s solo series, which ran for 100 issues. He appeared to have a fondness for the character. Interviewed about Azrael in 2009, O’Neil had this to say…
“I wish I’d done one or two things differently, and I think the series kind of lost its way for a while in the middle of the run. But all that aside…I don’t think there’s ever been a character exactly like Az before or since and I generally enjoyed working on him. I wish the 100th issue could have been stronger, but it was wonderful of Mike [Carlin] to let me write it; I was only weeks past major surgery at the time and maybe a ways from my best.”
O’Neil was an intelligent and contemplative individual, qualities that were frequently present in his writing. Although the “Joker: Last Laugh” crossover was a ridiculous event, O’Neil appears to have used this tie-in issue to briefly touch upon the subjective nature of human morality, and our struggles to understand if our actions are ethical.
Likewise, as I recently discussed on this blog, O’Neil utilized Leslie Thompins, another character he created, as a counterpoint to Batman and Azrael. Leslie is passionately dedicated to fighting for social justice, but she is an avowed pacifist. In the last storyline of this series O’Neil had Leslie calling out Batman for dragging the emotionally damaged Azrael further into a life of endless violence, and she works closely with Jean-Paul hoping that she will get him to see that he can walk his own path.
Brazilian-born Sergio Cariello penciled Azrael from issue #69 to the finale in issue #100. He was initially paired with James Pasco, who inked the series for seven years. On the last nine issues Cariello inked his own work.
Cariello was a student at the Joe Kubert School, and he later taught there. Thinking about it, I suppose you could describe Cariello’s work as a cartoony version of Kubert’s style. The Kubert influence certainly became more apparent in the issues where Cariello did full artwork. It’s another good demonstration of how different inkers affect the look of the finished art.
I actually did another 30 of these Daily Comic Book Coffee entries on the Comic Book Historians group for a grand total of 100. At some point I may re-post the rest of them here on my blog. However, all of the entries have already been archived by Rik Offenberger at First Comics News. Rik is also responsible for the nifty Daily Comic Book Coffee banner seen at the top of this blog post. Thanks again, Rik.
First Comics News is currently presenting my Comic Book Cats posts, as well. I hope you will check them out.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 