From the Margins of the Big Two

Author's Note: I have a slew of theories and ideas and observations from in and around the comic book world that I have been trying to grapple with for a while. I don' really want this specific forum to turn into a comics-only place for stuff, but i need to write some of this stuff down, and this seems like the best place for right now. This will keep me satisfied for a while, and hopefully I can get back to typing up observations of life's minutiae like this site's original purpose (I'm guessing, since I can't remember the exact wording I had in my head back in 2012.

I have an entire blog devoted to the indie world of comics called Beyond the Big Two, where Marvel and DC are today's Big Two.

But because that's "Beyond...", I feel silly about putting ideas and WTF-moments from Marvel and DC on that website.

In any case, today I present two mostly WTF-characters, one each from DC and Marvel, and the two separate trajectories the characters have taken over the years.

The First:

How Did We Get Here?

I'm highlighting DC's Animal Man, a WTF-character is ever there were one. Despite his power---being able to harness and mimic the powers of nearby animals---he is somewhat beloved today.

That's a pretty silly power, and yet, in the right hands, you get something like this, Animal Man #5 from 1988, often put on the short-list for "Greatest Single Issue Ever:"

It is a phenomenal issue. But how did we get here?

Animal Man first appeared in the 1965 and bounced around five, non-consecutive issues of Strange Adventures:

I assume it was hard for house writers to find much to do with the character. He wasn't seen again until 1980, with consecutive issues of Wonder Woman, and two other consecutive pairs of books later in the '80s, bot starring Superman:

And that's it. Just ELEVEN APPEARANCES. An obscure DC character with which few writers felt compelled to do anything.

Enter Grant Morrison, young writer from Scotland trying to catch the attention of either the major publishers in America. His proposal for the obscure Animal Man was accepted, and Morrison became part of the 1980s "British Invasion" of the comic scene.

That's how we get here: mostly bizarre and obscure character is handed over to young visionary writer who's given free reign over said obscure character.

Animal Man launched Morrison's major US presence, and from there he was given Doom Patrol duties, and eventually the rest became history. Animal Man is a cult hero, almost exclusively because of Grant Morrison.

Look at how influential Morrison's first issue was, when compared to mini-series "Last Days of Animal Man" from 2009, 21 years later:

The beloved-ness extends to whom, possibly, the character is later given. Here's the most recent incarnation, the first and last issue from 2011-2014, part of the New 52 boondoggle. The writer? One of the few that today could be considered analogous to Morrison in the 1980s, Jeff Lemire:

The Second:

Record Executive: "...and make her look like Bo Derek."

Marvel Executive: "...okay, we make that change..."

Now we're getting somewhere with the WTF-ness.

Originally planned as a joint creation of Marvel and Casablanca Records, the idea was a mutant that was also a disco queen. It would be great! She'd be able to sell comics, records, and maybe even get a movie made.

At first the Marvel guys (John Romita Jr) were using Grace Jones as their template, but she turned out to be too black for Casablanca. They wanted a Bo Derek-type so they could cast Bo Derek in the movie.

Thus, the creation of the Dazzler:

Beyond making light shows---manipulating light using her mutant powers---I'm not quite sure what kind of crime-fighting she does.

By day she's a singer, originally a disco star, but she eventually moved on into other genres as time went on. I put that in italics because it seems very odd to me that this character, quickly abandoned by the record company, got her own title, and stuck around for a few years.

As you can see, she went through three separate title designs in the five years her books were coming out:

I'm all for girl comics and girl power, and this is exciting because in 1980, when the title first appeared, there weren't too many female lead characters.

I also find it odd that Dazzler shows up on multiple lists for "Worst Character Ever."

She doesn't seem to have a huge cult following, but she was liked well enough somewhere in the Marvel offices, since they brought her back in both 2015 and 2016 to be on the A-Force team, an Avengers-like group made up of only women.

Can you find her in the first book? She mostly looks the same. In the second book, she's behind She-Hulk on the left, in the turquoise dress with short dark hair, her image having been updated.

Progression in an Artform Through Covers

It has been over a year since I put anything up over here. Observations, though, have been coming fast and furious lately.

Anywho, here I wanted to discuss a deep idea I've been having, and this is likely only an opening thought-organizing-party.

This main thesis is about how WEIRDNESS in a medium, or an aspect of life, is one of the propulsive things that progresses that medium or aspect of life.

Small anecdote: My younger brother, as a teenager, hated fashion, hated the idea of spending money of looking "preppy" or "popular" or like your closet was supplied by the Gap. He would deliberately wear combinations that he felt were ridiculous and that he thought other people---the same people he loathed---would ridicule. He also hated malls, but one day he and I had to pick something up at our local mall.

When we passed the storefront to a place called Pacific Sunwear (now known as the cooler and abbreviated "Pac Sun"), my brother was aghast at what he saw: three mannequins in the window all dressed exactly like he was. He wasn't a follower, he was a trendsetter, and in the decades since then, he's kept his edgy decisions on the forefront of weirdness. (At that same time I dressed like a pot-farming hobo.)

The industry of comic books, when viewed through an artistic-endeavor lens, can be tracked through any number of movements. Right here, right now, I'm looking at one specific title, and I like how the entire gamut of the late '80s Copper Age through the mid '90s Modern Age and the crash is seen in the covers of this one specific title.

I'm talking about the second volume of DC's "Doom Patrol", a series that saw Grant Morrison redefine the idea of what superhero comics could be and then auger in DC's Vertigo imprint.

In the beginning it looked like an 80's comic:

The Doom Patrol was always a haven for weird stuff anyway, that idea was really driven home once Grant Morrison took over the writing details. Right away, with his first issue, #19, he altered the title page. We can see with this first tweak the off-set double-o that will eventually come to define the design ethic that comes:

Eventually DC gave Morrison free-reign to fully redesign the cover look, and for a single issue this was the result:

By issue #27, the look that would come to define this bizarre superhero book has been set. The title design and Simon Bisely-painted covers were the norm for years. It was during this time that comics were drawing much attention, what with killing off Superman and breaking Batman's spine.

Those years led to an even more fracturing of the medium, and eventually the Doom Patrol title design reflected that.

Combined with the ultimate non-superhero-yet-mainstream-company comic Sandman, and other more adult-themed titles like Swamp Thing and Animal Man, Doom Patrol helped introduce the world to DC's mature line Vertigo. Issue #64, the first non-Morrison issue since #18, was the titles first Vertigo imprint:

Vertigo has since moved on to mostly creator-owned content. This is the look that this volume of the title would end with. The weirdness helped shape the medium from both the inside and the outside.

How is not the argument being made here, just a discussion of the signposts of that movement.

Pretty Sweet Cultural Mashups

It's been more than a year since I've been over here, not to mention the plethora of other blogs I keep (books, sports, cooking, Long Beezy local news...), but Time to return with a classic.

I've come across some items that are encouraging in that they speak to those of us weird enough to get them. Here's the first: "This is bat country."

This is a pretty nice cultural mashup, using the HST quote and scene to great effect.

With that comes the next mashup, the obligatory Gonzo and the good Doctor, and the Animal as facsimile of Oscar:

Here's one more of Jim Henson's Gonzo, done portraiture style as Hunter, but the medium is blotter paper:

"Pretty sweet" must just mean "involves Hunter Thompson."

Poaching...Murder?

That's a question that I've been thinking about the last few days and DO NOT claim to answer here and now. I was just having a thought...

In 1994, Charger, a majestic bull elk that patrolled the streets of Yellowstone, was gunned down. His corpse was found a few days later---his antlers had been hacked off. Here's a picture of Charger:

A few weeks later a taxidermist in Utah thought a set of antlers someone had just brought in to him bore a resemblance to the eulogistic article about Charger he'd just read. After some animal DNA investigations (seriously), CHAD BEUS was charged with killing Charger. He was fined $30,075 and sentenced to six months in jail. Here's an article about the lab that helped snare the young Beus.

Would anybody be surprised if Chad Beus would be arrested again for poaching? That he would be banned from hunting in 24 states for nearly a dozen years? You don't need to be a cynic to make a guess about killers. It took until 2005 before he was caught again.

Having to hunt for sustenance for you and your family is one thing. Elephants for tusks, elk for antlers, sharks for their fins...and then, how easy is it to reconcile that with all the violence that we mete out onto each other?

Anyway, all this is some background for when I start using chadbeus as a pejorative term synonymous with scumbag, you'll know where it came from.

Auxiliary Portland Pictures

What follows are some pictures from around Portland I took while on our most recent trip. 

This first one is a neat sculpture of wood and metallic corner details:

Among the many bike stores and camera stores (at least three! that could be an entire post by itself), there were a handful of used record stores, which is always good to see:

This is Pioneer Square and the courthouse at the end of it. It had a bas relief word marking on it saying "Pioneer Courthouse", so I'm not sure whether or not it's still in use. We were going to visit the site during our trip, but missed it until the very end, as the metro to the airport picks up right next to it:

These are artsy sculptures that collect sunlight to power the metro stop fixtures that are right there. That's the Rose Garden---aka basketball arena---in the background, and this is one of the metro stops associated with the arena:

Big mural or advertisement, on the side of the riverside factory. "Long Live Oregonians", aka "white people". Seriously, any ethnic people in the mural/advertisement? Maybe one?

Here are some of the stained-glass windows at Voodoo Doughnuts:

Roses, roses everywhere, so lets all have a sniff:

Tricky, Tricky

I need to do this for my phone, oddly enough.

Nothing to see here...

Limekiln Wildlife: Critters Edition

Here are some pictures of the animals we saw during our Limekiln camping trip:

In the first five minutes after getting there, there was a deer roaming the grounds, and I caught him like a ghost in the upper right-hand corner of this exposure:

An obvious addition to any trip to a California coast--seabirds:

Banana slugs in the wild! I'd never seen one before. It was pretty small, and I remember thinking, Who left a golden pepper out here? But it was moving! Cool:

Be careful and wary: smelly elephant seals brawling in the surf:

And sunning on the beach:

The big male on the upper right is nearly as big as my old Datsun 240-Z.