Xenozoic Tales coming back in a big way!

Literally.  Next June (2013 for those counting the years), IDW will release Mark Schultz's Xenozoic Tales Artist's Edition, 144 pages printed at a whopping 14" x 20" size.  It's their latest in a series that's seen big ol` versions of Walt Simonson's The Mighty Thor, Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer and others.  You get to see blue lines and all that jazz, almost as if you were holding the original art in your hands.  It should prove as instructive as it is aesthetically pleasing.  As both an artist and an art junkie, I'm going to buy this book when it hits the streets, probably leaving a massive crater.  Mark Schultz is just amazing.  I've already read these stories dozens of times each, but I never get tired of looking at his pages.  If you can get the regular comics or one of the many reprint books it's more than worth a lazy afternoon charting the Schultz's growth as a writer and artist.  You can actually see him working through various techniques and influences, starting with Wally Wood, then Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta plus others whose work I'm actually not familiar with until he emerges as a unique synthesis of all these classic elements, his personal style as easily recognized as that of any of those other giants.  The plot itself goes from EC-inspired vignettes to something more epic as Schultz gains confidence as a writer, too.  It's a super cool progression.

IDW must love huge books because I've got their Genius Isolated:  The Life and Art of Alex Toth book and that crazy thing must way thirty or forty tons.  We had to hire a special heavy lifting crane to winch it into my apartment and it's left the floor permanently depressed.  Not only that, but it's the first of a trilogy of books.  I'm going to have to build a special annex with some sort of carefully engineered load-bearing elements and perhaps a shock-absorbing system installed in the floor to handle them.  I find these kinds of books worth the expense, though.

You'd have to be some kind of nut not to be excited about this next piece of news.  You're not a nut, are you?  No?  Great!  Then, let's celebrate because it's official!  At the Flesk Publications panel during this year's San Diego Comic Con, Schultz promised when he finishes his book Storms at Sea, he's going to do another issue of Xenozoic Tales.  Finally!  It's been something like 16 years since he left us hanging with mechanic-shaman Jack Tenrec ousted from City in the Sea and planning to head back to Fessenden's Station where the story began.  The last few issues of Xenozoic Tales raised a lot of questions and its hiatus left them hanging in the air.  What are the reptilian grith?  What's their relationship with Hannah Dundee and how much do they know about her mysterious origins as a foundling?  Can the sometimes bull-headed Tenrec maintain his tenuous new alliances, retake City in the Sea, reinstate the Machinato Vitae and restore the balance between humans and nature before destructive elements in control of his home cause another catastrophe?  These questions drive me to distraction at times!

It may take a while for Schultz to get around to it, but in the meantime, here's a cartoon version. You know, for kids...

 

More leftist art...

Your guess is as good as mine as to why these people and a giant gorilla are all raising their left arms.  I think Batgirl is going to kick that erzatz Uncle Fester's ass (if she can ever untangle herself from that flowing mess of a cape), and Enid is confused as to how she got involved in this mess.  Frazetta's happy monkey wants to play.

Uncle Creepy introduces the faces of fear!

You can't go wrong with a little Uncle Creepy in your day.  These Warren house ads are the best.  Can you recognize the artists represented here? I see Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, Frank Frazetta...

The rest is up to you, my friend.

And meanwhile, as an art form, comics have never been better!

You know what?  Screw both DC and Marvel.  All the talk about the health of the industry centers around whatever those two companies are doing.  Well, logically so because they're the big players.  And they do put out some good books here and there.  They've got some great talent working for them.  But screw them.  I'm sick to death of discussing the future of the medium as if it totally hinges on whether or not the New 52 brought in new readers (it didn't) or The Avengers will make millions that will be forever denied Jack Kirby's family (it will).

The form itself is stronger than ever.  You don't have to be concerned with whatever new books come out this month and how they sell.  Step back and look at comics as a whole.  You can draw from the entire history of comics for your entertainment.  You can cross oceans and experience comic culture in Europe and Asia.  There are millions of comic book stories out there we haven't even read yet.  Dark Horse puts out some amazing books, both new and reprinted, American and international.  Fantagraphics publishes all kinds of amazing titles like Love and Rockets, Buddy Does Seattle/Jersey, Wandering Son and huge books containing entire years worth of Peanuts strips.  Don't forget Charles Burns's Black Hole from Pantheon.  Have you read that yet?  Dan Clowes's Ghost World.

There's a new book on Alex Toth coming out, but in the meantime there's Torpedo and Zorro.  Viz puts out some fantastic Japanese comics like Nana to name only one.  People are putting out their own comics online or through print-on-demand publishers.  If you must-- and you know where to look-- you can download practically every comic ever printed for free.  People are spending their free time scanning entire runs of books and putting them online and they're not charging anything for this!  Others are translating and localizing Asian comics and making them available totally for free, too!

Flesk recently printed an incredible book collecting Al Williamson's entire Flash Gordon-related output, compiled and edited by Mark Schultz.  There are Alex Raymond reprints.  There are Creepy and Eerie archive books (or even Vampirella if that's your taste), Vanguard Productions has a massive book of Frank Frazetta strips, Fantagraphics put out a softcover version of their Blazing Combat book, there are Hal Foster books, Carl Barks books, books like the amazing Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Wendy and Richard Pini have their entire Elfquest saga online for free, Image has tons of stuff available, Drawn and Quarterly with Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant (one of the best things ever to exist in this world or any other) plus books by Lynda Barry, Oni Press, Slave Labor Graphics, Top Shelf Productions, Knockabout Comics, Archie Comics and Checker Book Publishign Group with their Gold Key Star Trek reprints and more.

And more and more and more.  I'm just tossing out some things off the top of my head.  I love comics.  If DC and Marvel went away today, I'd still love comics and I'd still have plenty of comics to read.

Creepy #7: Comic Nirvana has been achieved!

Let's take a moment and appreciate the wonderful thing known as Creepy #7, published in 1965, back before even I was born. The levels of artistry and fun register off the scale with this one. It starts with this the Frank Frazetta painted cover. There is nothing more you could ask of a horror comic cover. The Universal Studios-style Wolfman versus Dracula. If you're anything of a horror comic aficionado or just a fan of great funnybook art, I defy you to resist this cover's allure. Frazetta's color palette here is amazingly controlled. Cool neutrals dominate, contrasted with subdued warm reds along Dracula's cape. Wolfman's back is incredible-- gray flecked with brown and green, with subtle blue and pinkish underlighting. It's early morning light. At first glance it may seem as if Wolfman is kicking Dracula's ass, but check out the wounds on that hairy arm, visible through the misty sfumato characteristic of Frazetta's paintings-- these monsters have doomed themselves.

If only they could've put aside their differences!

Even the Creepy logo is wonderful. Lurid red, oozing, dripping typeface. But what lurks inside? Do Wolfman and Dracula actually fight? Kind of. The lead story is "The Duel of the Monsters" by editor Archie Goodwin, with some sweet, sweet Angelo Torres art. The half-splash features a rooftop werewolf on the prowl-- what a hook!-- and we're already involved in the story.

Goodwin's story delivers. It's 1811 Spain, and the vampire is a sergeant on the city's night watch who uses his position to cover his murderous un-lifestyle. When competition rears its furry, fanged head in the form of a werewolf, the sergeant will stop at nothing to destroy the interloper. He soon identifies his prime suspect, but things go badly for the vampire. The twist ending is a little abrupt, but appropriately nasty. Torres's art at this time is sometimes difficult to differentiate from Al Williamson's, which is a high compliment indeed. Here he creates plenty of mood and atmosphere with sophisticated lighting effects, but doesn't allow the story's nocturnal setting to obscure his storytelling or draftsmanship.

The second story is "Image of Bluebird," by Bill Pearson. It's about Monica and Brian, newlyweds who move to an isolated house deep in the woods. Thanks to some grisly murders, Monica becomes convinced she's married a Bluebeard. No, not a pirate. His beard was black. The infamous Bluebeard, killer of wives. Joe Orlando does all he can to make her suspicions valid with his ambiguous portrayal of Brian. One moment he's literally sweeping Monica off her feet, the next he's brandishing a knife and looking positively demonic. Fortunately for Monica, it's all a case of mistaken identity. Brian, however, is not so lucky. Pearson's crafted a tightly plotted tale and Orlando provides some fun moments with axes and one truly spectacular panel where a character screams "AAAAARRRRGGHH!" with a knife sticking out of his chest. Hard to go wrong with bloody stabbings.

For you folklore fans, there's the beautifully Frazetta-illustrated "Creepy's Loathsome Lore!" Here we learn that people not only turn into wolves but also into tigers, jaguars and foxes. According to Uncle Creepy (and Frank Frazetta), "Both China and Japan abound with legends of fox-women... beautiful girls said to entice male victims, then change into a snarling, attacking fox!" And dress like Vampirella while doing so, apparently. I'm not so sure about China and its legends, but I'm pretty sure kitsune never dressed this way in Japan. Still, this little info page tantalizes with the thought of what the Warren staffers might have done if they'd tapped into Japanese horror stories like the kuchisake-onna or rokurokubi instead of constantly drawing on pulp fiction versions of voodoo curses and 19th century European settings.

Then it's time for Alex Toth and Archie Goodwin's "Rude Awakening," one of those stories where the protagonist keeps slipping in and out of horrific nightmares until he can no longer separate fantasy from reality. And by the end of this , neither can we. It's the weakest story in the issue, and suffers from an over-familiar concept, a variation on the old wheezy "Coachman's Warning" tale, substituting the more menacing figure of a knife-wielding geek in glasses for the coachman. Rod Serling did his own take with a modern setting in a Twilight Zone episode called "Twenty-Two," which aired way back in 1961. Toth evidences a fine control with ink washes, and something about Goodwin's script really inspired him to lay down the lines because he isn't working in his more characteristic minimalist mode. A few of the faces are exaggerated and comical-- almost as if Toth were experimenting with a Jack Davis-inspired style.

Eando Binder and John Severin invite us to "Drink Deep" with a very EC-esque story of a rich jerk (is there any other kind in horror comics?) who treats everyone like shit (do they do anything but?) but makes the mistake of doing so on a yacht richly appointed with gold stolen by his pirate ancestor. If horror comics have taught us anything, it's being a jerk leads to ironic comeuppance at the hands of the undead. What's fun about this story-- besides the rotten seamen who stagger around, no doubt leaving a trail of salty slime all over the yacht's hardwood decks-- is seeing Severin's slightly caricatured figures in the service of terror rather than humor. I first encountered John Severin as the key artist for Cracked magazine, where he drew their parodies of things like the 1976 King Kong remake starring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange, plus Rick Baker in an ape suit. Here he employs slightly exaggerated facial expressions and that distinctly Severin-ish cross-hatching to wonderful effect, elevating a somewhat predictable (but no less fun) tale.

Goodwin and Reed Crandall score with their adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Body Snatcher." I haven't read the original, but Crandall's etching-like linework is ideal for the story's setting. It has a "Classics Illustrated" feel to it, very ornate and a joy to behold. Goodwin's script affords Crandall the chance to try all kinds of lighting effects, like the radiating lines around a single candle and the slanting streaks of rain on a gloomy evening. Mr. Gray is a thoroughly repulsive fellow, but you're left wondering just who is worse-- the loudmouthed body snatcher who provides goods a little too fresh for his clients, or the doctors themselves.

"Blood of Krylon" has a goofy title, but a killer concept. What do you do if you're a vampire in a future where the entire surface is now covered with ultra-modern skyscrapers and law-enforcement agencies use infallible robots to control crime? You take off for the space colonies in search of fresh prey, that's what. But you'd better study up on extrasolar planets-- particularly their rotational periods. The vampire thought of everything in this story except that. Yes, the ending is quite predictable (but it's a fun ride getting there) and I'm not sure why our future vampire has to dress like a Dracula reject complete with high-collared cloak, but Gray Morrow's creamy art truly impresses. These aren't ink drawings with just washes, but fully realized monochromatic paintings.

But the best is last. The most visually spectacular story in the magazine is "Hot Spell," written by Goodwin and once again illustrated by Crandall. It begins with a wash-painted flashback to "17th century New England," where warlock Rapher Grundy meets his flaming death at the hands of some pissed-off Puritans. Never mind that the preferred method of executing witches was hanging-- a good old fashioned burning at the stake provides more time for Grundy to scream, "My curse is on this village!! Let each generation feel it and suffer!" Then comes the splash page:

Kind of heartwarming, huh? Unless you're that guy in the intersection. He's warm all over. It doesn't take long for the townsfolk to pin the blame on the newcomer-- some kind of Bohemian artist type. You know, the kind of Commie degenerate who goes around sporting an untucked polo shirt, pinstriped pants and... gasp... pennyloafers! Goodwin's script foreshadows some of the themes Stephen King would work with in some of his short stories and the novel Salem's Lot. The evil we do lives on, hidden behind the banal facade of small town life and all that. It may be good enough for John Mellencamp, but Goodwin finds finds prejudice and urge to mob violence just below the seemingly tranquil surface of this particular one-pick up truck burg. And no little pink houses, as far as I can tell. Crandall's fine-lined art makes it certainly a pretty how town with up so floating many bells down! It also gives the fisticuffs and destruction an ironic Norman Rockwell feel. The comeuppance is a bit abrupt and too literal, but who can argue with a story as gorgeously drawn as this?

Wow. When I read Creepy #7 the first time, I just could not get over what I was seeing on each page. Even though the writing quality is a bit up and down, the stories are never less than fun. And it's difficult to imagine a more beautifully illustrated comic than this. Pure joy in print form.