Hooray for Lonnie Loomis!

As a teen she favored striped tops, loved her father and two sisters and was quite fond of cats.  Lonnie Loomis, middle child extraordinaire, caught between the bossy, demanding eldest Stacy and the irrepressible, attention-seeking, somewhat psychotic, baby Michana.  I don't get to read many psychological or psychiatric studies (just the abstracts and second hand articles), but from what I can gather Alfred Adler came up with this idea the order of your birth determines your personality

The first born is special, doted upon, grows up feeling closer to authority figures such as parents, becomes a leader.  In the Loomis family, it's Stacy.  She starts her siblings down the path of vengeance, then burns out.  Literally.  The youngest gets even more attention and sometimes ends up spoiled rotten.  They become class clowns and show-offs.  In Michana's case, they become child assassins for Ursula X.X. Imada, then head teen gangs on multi-planet crime sprees.  What about the middle child?  They make do.  That's how you get a Lonnie Loomis.  In any event, this is the simple version.

Poor Lonnie.  Although her sisters love her, she's the only one among them to doubt their mission.  She adored her father as much as Stacy and Michana ever did, but killing a lot of strangers for the alien weirdo the Merk in exchange for the fusion casting power of Nexus doesn't appeal to her.  She's too compassionate and uncertain.  Her attention wanders because she wants something of a normal life.

Introduced in Nexus #25 (First Comics, 000, 198-) alongside Stacy and Michana, Lonnie mourns the murder of her beloved father, General Loomis.  They later learn his killer was the orginal Nexus, in Nexus #3- (000, 198-), and Lonnie is the one who spits in his face.  Here's the sequence as illustrated by Mike Mignola, with inks by John Nyberg.

Soon, Lonnie begins actively voicing her doubts and opposition to Stacy's leadership as they risk Michana's life and sanity by holding a seance that allows the young girl to host what's apparently a demon in hopes of learning where to gain enough power to kill Nexus.  From this moment on, Lonnie begins to drift from her sisters.

She's still involved enough to accompany them on their visit to the Merk.  They arrive on --- in Nexus #3- (000, 198-), but it's in Next Nexus #1 where they actually confront the whimsical extra-dimensional alien and demand Nexus abilities for themselves.  The gigantic Merk immediately chooses Michana to invest with these powers.  It's a terrifying scene reminiscent of some of the darker elements from the 1971 children's film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder as Wonka.  As we all know, the movie is all about obnoxious kids tempting fate and paying the price.  And as powerful a figure as Willy Wonka is, he's also just a candy-maker.  The Merk is beyond our reckoning.  For a moment, one can only imagine what unspeakable horrors the Merk will visit upon fragile human child Michana.

What he does is casually toss her into one of the strange globular tanks Nexus bathes in to have his dreams and recharge his seemingly unlimited powers.  Lonnie objects and this causes the Merk to punish her and Stacy with intense headaches.  Michana saves her sisters by rebuking the Merk even as he holds her aloft by her ponytail.  Lonnie then attempts to reject the Merk's gift outright, and he reacts by lashing out at her again.  Michana defends Lonnie again, and the Merk transforms them into fusionkasters.

In the Nexus books, "fusionkasting" is the technical name for Nexus' superpowers, and what a Nexus does is kill mass murderers.  This never sits well with Lonnie.  Even series hero Horatio Hellpop himself alternates between acceptance and avoidance of his appointed task, and there's the question-- voiced by Lonnie-- of whether or not an alien such as the Merk has the right to judge humanity.  Michana argues his alien nature makes him more objective and therefore more qualified for this than humans themselves.  Stacy and Michana accept their charge and perform their first killing.  They are in effect assassins in the hire of the Merk, a creature whose behavior is erratic at best, and their new powers corrupt them almost at once.

Lonnie adopts a cat against her sisters' wishes and refuses to join them on their vendetta.  In a chilling scene, the pair confront Lonnie and cajole her into throwing the cat out the window.  At this point, the break between siblings becomes inevitable.  While Lonnie pursues a questionable relationship as a way out, the other two court disaster by confronting Nexus himself.  With this, Lonnie drops from the narrative until ---- (Dark Horse, --- 199-).

Michana, now a murderous teen and gang leader (after having served an apprenticeship as an assassin under the tutelage of arch-villain Ursula X.X. Imada), ends up arrested and it's Lonnie who assumes custody of the wayward girl.  What follows is a hilarious romantic misadventure in which a Tom Cruise lookalike named Tom Zeus (just to make it plain just who Mike Baron and Steve Rude are satirizing) puts some all-too-smooth moves on Lonnie.  Feeling protective of her more naïve older sister, the more worldly Michana does her thing. 

Her thing involves dressing like a ninja and using a paralyzing poison on Zeus.

What next for good ol' Lonnie?  As far as I know, she hasn't reappeared in Nexus, which ended a long hiatus to reappear first as an offering from Rude's own Rude Dude Productions and then as a recurring feature in the new Dark Horse Presents ongoing.  Baron and Rude haven't seen fit to update readers on all things Loomis, but it's only a matter of time.  Let's hope she finds some kind of happiness.

But not too much.

A big bundle of classic Steve Rude Nexus pages hit Heritage Auctions!

Oh wow.  Oh wow.  Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!  I love to gush about my favorite artists here.  Steve Rude is one of them.  According to the email I just got, Rude is offering a huge bundle of absolutely gorgeous vintage Nexus pages-- including some from as far back as the Capital Comics days-- for sale from Heritage Auctions.  You've been looking at a lot of my fumbling attempts at art, and I appreciate it.  To reward your patience, here's a link to Rude's pages.

This both thrills and frustrates me.  It's long been a dream of mine to have an original Steve Rude art page.  Or a commission. My finances are a little complicated by a little thing we like to call the Pacific Ocean at the moment.  It's too involved to explain and also... you know... personal.  So this auction couldn't come at a more inconvenient time for my participation.  Well, that's not true.  It could have come back when I was flat broke and living from beer to beer.  I'm just frustrated by my theoretical ability to pay versus the reality of the situation.  But don't let that stop you.  Buy some of those pages!

Actually, original art collecting interests me.  I've encountered people who've owned prime Jack Kirby pages and traded them away.  What would you trade a Jack Kirby page away for?  The only thing I can think of that's worth it would be another Jack Kirby page.  And some collectors own entire books.  That's amazing.  The most mind-boggling stories are the ones where the collector met the Kirbys in person and picked through all these pages and bought up a bundle of them for fifty bucks a pop.  Can you imagine that?  You couldn't buy one of Kirby's cigar ashes for fifty bucks these days!

Anyway, original art.  It's expensive.  It looks really cool, though.  The printed books just do not do the actual artwork any kind of justice.

Oh, that's right-- I do own some original art.  I own a couple of Alley Oop dailies.  Just the pencils.  They're on vellum and they are beautiful.  My grandfather lived near the guy who was drawing Alley Oop at the time and told him I was a comic fan and that was the result.  We've been meaning to have them framed for the longest time.  I wish I hadn't been such an asshole kid or I would have written the artist a huge thank you letter.  Instead I did nothing.  I am so, so very sorry for that lapse now.

Yes, at one time I was a huge Alley Oop fan.  I suppose I still am, but I haven't seen a strip in years.

Steve Rude announces the end of Nexus

That's tough news to take, but every story has to end sometime.  According to the latest Steve Rude newsletter, jauntily titled "Old Year, New Year, Easy on the Cold Beer-- It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," when Rude and writer Mike Baron finish the Nexus story currently running in Dark Horse Presents, they will "suspend things for now."  Or, as Rude writes, "[We feel] our finest work is yet to come, as represented with the upcoming climax of the Nexus/Clayborn saga in Dark Horse Presents comics."

Baron will continue writing novels, and Rude will do some mysterious project for DC West, then jump back into his personal, creator-owned properties with the return of The Moth.  You may remember a certain 5-issue miniseries Rude worked up with Gary Martin a while back for Dark Horse.  I liked it a lot.  The circus setting, the diverse cast of characters, the old-fashioned heroic virtues on display and all that kind of thing.  Right in my comics-enjoying wheelhouse, as it were.  This won't be self-published; it's coming out under the Flesk Publications banner.

So here comes the end of about thirty years of exciting and provocative space adventuring.  I'm not sure what more Baron and Rude could have done with Nexus and Sundra.  Nexus has quit being Nexus, come back again, killed more mass murderers than any handful of Wolverines, Ursula X. X. Imada met her long-fated demise, other characters have died and lived and aged, and now there's a newborn child in the mix.  While I don't know how Baron and Rude will leave their little family and cast of thousands, I have a feeling there will be a fitting valediction that will leave us satisfied.

And yet still wanting more.

At least they have the opportunity to conclude Nexus where they want, unlike with "Nightmare in Blue" where economic factors forced them to leave things kind of hanging.  That was truly heartbreaking in a way this latest announcement isn't.  I wanted to weep at the time.  Similar causes seem to have crashed Rude's attempt at self-publishing, too.  Hey, I forget that story and it's too cold here to spend a lot of time looking it up.  You probably know more about it than I do.  We Nexus fans were definitely lucky Mike Richardson at Dark Horse acted the way I wish all comics publishers did: making sure Baron and Rude got their character and story rights back, then giving them a place to tell more Nexus stories when they felt it was time.

One thing I really regret about this is, they had just introduced long-anticipated character Origami into the storyline.  I don't think the character is exactly as they intended.  My guess is they took the concept and folded (ha ha, aren't I clever) it into the Nexus universe just to make sure the name and costume didn't go to waste.  I would love for them to revisit her sometime.  Or someone under their supervision!  It's hard to resist a character whose catchphrase is, "I like to fold things" as she zips away from the mayhem she's caused.

Well, I'm looking forward to more Baron and Rude.  And The Moth!

Steve Rude does Black Friday the right way!

From the Steve Rude Art Newsletter e-mail

I love getting these updates from the Rudes.  And the Dude has been hyper-creative lately.  There's a new Nexus storyline appearing in Dark Horse Presents and now this Black Friday Blitz.  If you're interested, this may be your big chance to get a Batman drawn by Steve Rude.  He usually refuses to draw Batman commissions.  I'm seriously considering asking for a Dani Moonstar.  It's pricey, but it's worth it.

Edit-- Oops!  Rude's not doing commissions right now because of his Nexus schedule.  So that gives me time to think of something truly special to ask for when he opens his commissions list again!  Although I'll happily do without as long as it means he's drawing Nexus.

Nexus: The Origin, the book that hooked me on Nexus

Like many of you, I bought Dark Horse's Nexus:  The Origin way back in 1992, when it first came out.  Steve Rude has had it remastered since then, but even all those years ago it was a singular experience for a comic reader.  All the sweeping events making up the young Horatio "Nexus" Hellpop's biography collapsed into a single double-sized issue, from the tragic love affair between his parents (his dad was a conflicted commie general and his mother a sensitive painter) to his first encounter with future mate Sundra Peale.  Mike Baron works each vignette expertly for poignancy or playfulness and Steve Rude's art is simply gorgeous throughout.  Baron and Rude are two guys whose disparate personal views somehow mesh instead of clash.  In a text piece I read in some other book-- or maybe it was in this one-- Baron relates how Rude would phone him howling for Ursula X.X. Imada's blood for some outrage of hers, but together they produce something so beautiful if there are any seams showing they seem stitched right into the overall design.

And so it is with Nexus:  The Origin, which brought their much-lauded creation back for another go-around.  The new Nexus series-- actually broken up for some reason into smaller mini-series, each telling a complete story unto itself but also containing a shadow numbering related to the overall Nexus saga--  produced a number of memorable moments but didn't exactly top the sales charts.  At the end of the arrangement, Dark Horse reverted the character rights back to Baron and Rude, a class move if there ever was one.  A few years later, Rude started Rude Dude Productions, a self-publishing venture that sadly couldn't find a profitable niche in the then-current marketplace.  It was with Rude Dude this new version of Nexus:  The Origin came out, recolored and spiffed up-- although I was fine with the first one, which won the 1993 Eisner for Single Best Issue.

I'd say since I can't remember the specifics of any other single comic book I read that year and since this one made me a confirmed fan of its characters and overall series, then it's my Single Best Issue for 92-93 as well.  But it wasn't my first encounter with Nexus and his world.

Years before, when I was a junior high kid hooked on The New Mutants and Judge Dredd, I used to do pin-up artwork for a local comic shop, and the owners-- a gentle married couple who always treated me royally-- paid me with autographed posters.  One of these was a print of a painted Nexus cover.  While Rude's art impressed me a great deal-- I'd read a bit about him in Comics Scene and Amazing Heroes magazines so I knew who he was and all about his drawing capabilities-- Nexus looked too much like Cyclops from Uncanny X-Men and I just couldn't wrap my pea-brain around what I thought was a slick Marvel rip-off.  Not that I objected to anyone doing such a thing; I had notebooks full of derivative ideas of my own.  I just didn't want to participate in someone else doing the same.

Or so I thought then.  Later, I learned how wrong I was and if anyone's going to time travel and whup up on my skinny butt for being an idiot, it's me.  Still, I like to think then-me had some precociously refined taste even when he was too timid to sample.  As with A Distant Soil, something about Nexus stuck with me over the next eight or so years as I grew up into the weirdo who writes foolishness here.  Comic stores came and went and so did my interest in comics, but somehow I got hooked again in the early '90s and one of the hookers was Nexus:  The Origin.

I don't even know why I bought it after such a history not buying Nexus, but I distinctly remember the first time I read it (of many).  I was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom at my parents' house where I lived while I worked at a two-year college teaching developmental English.  I read it from cover to cover, just amazed at how perfectly, how skillfully Baron and Rude presented each moment, just slices in time.  It has everything you need to know about the character Nexus and his life, features the series' tonal variety and stands alone as a compelling story.  The overall sense of generational tragedy-- a recurring Nexus theme-- was probably my major emotional take away.

Well, that and falling in love with yet another comic book.  Oh, and yes, I washed my hands before I picked the book up off the very clean white tile floor where it lay.  In my mind, I haven't really put it down since.

If you're looking for an economical way to hop aboard the Nexus bus...

Dark Horse Comics has you covered:  Nexus Omnibus Volume 1 TPB :: Profile :: Dark Horse Comics.  For only $24.99 (USD), you get #1-3 of the first volume of Nexus and #1-11 of the color series that started at Capital Comics then moved to First Comics.  That's 14 comic books at about $1.78 each.  Superhero comics don't get any better than this.  From Mike Baron's literate and witty scripts-- involving all sorts of heady science-fiction concepts like gravity wells, bowl-shaped planets, fusion-based superpowers sought by politicians as a limitless energy source, plus good old fashioned love-- to Steve Rude's gorgeous artwork and fun character designs, Nexus has everything.  Everything!

Epic storylines, tender moments.  A hero struggling with his mission.  A cast of hundreds, if not thousands.  Occasional background appearances by Jack Kirby, Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock.  Humor, heartbreak.  Thunes. Quatros.  Ursula X.X. Imada.  The Loomis Sisters.

Well, hold on.  The Loomis Sisters don't appear until Nexus #25, so they won't be in this book.  But if you buy it, you'll be hooked and become filled with anticipation at their inevitable appearance.  The Dude's art starts a little crude and unformed, but very quickly develops into the recognizable brilliance that once made him a top name mentioned alongside all those other top names back when being a top name in comics meant something.  I'd buy this myself, but I'm already locked into collecting the hardcover Nexus Archives series, which is much pricier.  I'd give it up in favor of this more affordable option but I already have the stories in this thing, plus I don't want my bookself to look disorganized or poorly planned.  Consistency.  That's what I want.  But to you, who have been champing at the bit to get into Nexus only to suffer from sticker shock or price intimidation, this is your chance.

Read it from the beginning.  And maybe Dark Horse will see fit to collect all those Nexus issues they put out in the 1990s, plus the more recent Rude Dude Productions books, into one fat volume as well.  Oh, and the series running in Dark Horse Presents which I haven't read because I'm in Japan without a credit card.

This series won SIX Eisner Awards.  That's six more than I've even been nominated for.  Buy it this November.  You won't regret it.

Ursula X.X. Imada: Motherhood Hall of Fame Inductee for 2512!

Steve Rude, Nexus #4 (Capital, Nov. 1983)

There are mothers and moms and mamas and mommies, but there's only one Ursula X.X. Imada, former Attorney General for the Cohesive Web, architect, ace spy, assassin, ambassador, prophet of the Elvonic Brotherhood religion and ruler of the planet Procyon.  Also single mother, not the least of her roles.

Being a mother isn't an easy job under the best of circumstances. But here's a woman of power, with a demanding career occasionally involving the possible black hole death of as many as 400 billion people, yet also devoted to her children.  As mother to the twin daughters of Horatio Hellpop, otherwise known as Nexus, Ursula has developed many effective parenting techniques.  But then Scarlett and Sheena are special children with intelligence and abilities far beyond the norm.  Sheena, for example, is a telepath.  She always knows what Santa's bringing for Christmas, if the jolly ol' elf can maneuver his sleigh past her mother's planetary defenses and infiltrate the well-protected Castle Imada (Imada-jo).  Scarlett is a "fusionkaster" (that's fusion-based energy manipulator to you and me, Russ) with powers rivaling her famous father's.  If these two are to follow in their illustrious mother's political footsteps, they require more than the usual family dinners and ballet lessons.

Rude/Eric Shanower, Nexus #9 (First, Nov. 1985)

Let's look at some of Usula X.X. Imada's finest mommy moments.  We can learn a thing or two from her!

Ursula's first and foremost a proponent of being their for your children.  Being part of their lives.  Although her responsibilities and career as a power-seeker occupies a great deal of her time and concentration, Ursula X.X. Imada makes it a point to be part of her daughters’ lives.  When convenient, a physical presence.  This includes doing such things as canceling meetings with heads of state and personally breastfeeding (despite taking her own sweet time giving them names) the babes.  Yet always a spiritual or psychic one.  Even in her absence, she makes her influence felt by providing for their intellectual and emotional well-being.

Ursula's parenting techniques have their basis in education.  Rigorous education.  She has lofty expectations for her daughters' academic progress, sets standards high and demands they perform to the best of their abilities.  Special talents require special teachers.  As ruler of an entire planet, Ursula has massive resources upon which to draw.  This ensures she hires only the best tutors for individualized instruction.  While you may not have her deep pockets, do the best you can with what you have.  Remember:  when you skimp on your children's education now, you pay extra for it later.

Rude/Shanower, Nexus #15 (First, Dec. 1983)

She has seen to their early childhood education with staples such as various Earth-based and intergalactic languages, plus advanced Calculus, which both girls quickly master.  The need for a solid base in math and the sciences is obvious.  But languages play and important role in a child's development, especially if they are to read historical texts in the original languages; this allows the young mind to absorb information within its proper cultural context as some concepts do not translate into English, Japanese or Interlac.  Let's spy as Ursula discovers to her delight just how talented her twins are.  Hope she doesn't spot us!

Rude/John Nyberg, Nexus #27 (First, Dec. 1985)

Note here Ursula's use of praise.  Positive reinforcement plays a crucial role in developing your child's potential both in the classroom and without.  And here we see the arrival of one of the girls' instructors, the fusionkasting professional wrestler, martial artist and galaxy-famous chef and raconteur Judah Maccabee.  While she was skeptical of Judah due to his closeness with Hellpop, she allows him to stay because of his obvious expertise.  Ursula would counsel you not to neglect your children's physical development.

Rude/Nyberg, Nexus #27 (First, Dec. 1985)

The point is, while most public schools and even many private ones have an unfavorable teacher-student ratio, the individualized approach of a hands-on, live-in educator provides incalcuable benefits, even if the turnover rate at Castle Imada is comparatively much higher.  Managed correctly, however, even frequent changes in teachers can become lessons unto themselves, rather than a source of uncertainty.  Ursula's daughters thrive in such an environment, showing remarkable progress from an early age.  Could you, as a parent, do any less for your offspring?  Perish the thought!

Rude, Nexus #50 (First, Nov. 1988)

As you can see here, Ursula also believes in helping her daughters with their homework.  While their minds are certainly sponge-like and soak up knowledge, she likes give them a little squeeze now and then to see what they've absorbed.  Ursula takes an interest in what her offspring have to say, and you should do the same with yours as well.  They may surprise you!  This can also be useful in gauging whether or not they're becoming fluent in your philosophy of the application of political and personal power.  Or if they've overheard someone plotting against you.

Jackson Guice/Nyberg, Nexus #32 (First, May 1987)

This next lesson might be the most controversial.  At the same time, Ursula isn't afraid to resort to corporal punishment.  Ursula demonstrates proper technique in this sequence.  Obviously in today's touchy-feely, anything-goes society, a good open-handed blow to the face has lost its currency.  Indeed, many so-called experts baldly state one should never strike a child.  Ursula believes this is still one of the most effective ways a caring parent can make her point.  Just make sure you follow up with an instructive word or two so the punctuating effect of a good slap isn't lost.  It's not that you want to weed out their violent impulses; it's that you want to aim them at the correct targets.  Violence without direction is simply chaos, and that will never do.

Guice/Nyberg, Nexus #32 (First, May 1987)

As Ursula demonstrates, in the aftermath of such punishment, it's further effective to reinforce the closeness of the family unit.  Embrace your children.  This is the "carrot" to the slap's "stick."  Some may decry this as sending mixed signals, resulting in emotional confusion.  Nonsense, Ursula replies.  And if so, sometimes this is necessary lest the children become complacent.  Complacency is also your enemy, along with those standing in the way on your path to absolute rule over a solar system or two.

Ursula also shares words of wisdom before she she offers the group hug.  When one child is a telepath-- even one as powerful as Sheena-- she may feel overshadowed by sister, who draws her abilities from the heart of a star.  Still, as the instigator of this incident, she must still fulfill her sisterly obligations to share.  As Ursula often observes, "Sharing is caring, if I say it is."  Or she would, if she used simple-minded rhyming aphorisms like some sort of nightclub hilariator.

This comes immediately after her sacking of the aforementioned Judah Maccabee.  Ursula will quickly fire recalcitrant or neglectful teachers, even one as highly credentialed as the famed Thune.  As always, the children come first unless there's some vital plot afoot that requires they come second.  Ursula belives instructors, although ostensibly part of the household, should also refrain from involving themselves in family matters unless otherwised asked, under pain of death.  Certain Thunes, who may prove especially troublesome, destructive or useful at a later time, may be exempt from the punitive clauses contained in their contracts.  In these cases, a simple sacking will suffice.  If the employee in question is a simple human, such as the unfortunate Lonnie Loomis, who succeeded Judah as tutor a few years later, one might resort to torture before dismissal.  Either way, like Ursula, do not be afraid to pull the plug!

Spyder/Bob Dvorak, Nexus #56 (First, May 1989)

How many times now have we seen Ursula embrace the girls?  I count three, but these are by no means the only times.  One must assume life goes on even when the story focus shifts from Procyon to Mars or Ylum, or the Bowl-Shaped World.  Hug, hug, hug.  Learn from Ursula's example and do not refrain from open expressions of love, even if the children have been up to mischief, such as stealing a starcraft, navigating it across the galaxy to visit (or save) their father and immolating his enemies with fusion energy.  Reserve the right to punish later and maintain a decisive front.  Children respond well to consistency.  Indeed, they crave it.  But by all means, hug them!  You may also use this moment to feel for communication devices secreted on their persons, or for hidden weapons.  Forewarned is forearmed.

Pet names or other forms of endearment not only make the child feel loved, but may also stimulate his or her own imagination to come up with similar nicknames for the rest of the family.  Here's as especially instructive example.

Mark Heike/Jeff Albrecht, Nexus #69 (First, June, 1990)

Ursula knows it’s through her actions she is most influential on the girls.  This is vital to her parenting philosophy.  Therefore, as in all things, she is quite deliberate in her parental interactions.  She maintains a pose of dignity and control at all times.  Lessers, such as employees, lower-ranking colleagues, servants and those to be tortured or executed, are kept at a respectful distance.  When enforcing her admittedly harsh laws, Ursula pursues her form of jurisprudence with great vigor and force.  Ursula makes sure Scarlett and Sheena have some knowledge of this as a lesson in proper tyrannical behavior.  On a related not, she was also not shy in their early years about letting them know their father's vocation, assassin of mass murderers.

Always remember, your success or failure as a parent will determine whether or not your children become lazy Mezz fanatics, wasting themselves and their lives in some sort of musical caravan forever in pursuit of cheap thrills, or largely benevolent dictators of adoring millions ready to accept the harshest of rule.  It's all up to you, the parent.  But by studying these examples of super-mom Ursula X.X. Imada and emulating her whenever possible, you, too, might become an award winner!

Comic book quest... begins!

I'll be gone for a few days.  I plan to find Blister, the comic book/toy store hidden somewhere in Tokyo.  I've been there before.  Come to think of it, it may not be open.  Well, here's hoping.  Wish me luck and all that.  My goal is to buy the new Dark Horse Presents with Nexus.  If I can accomplish that, it will be worth the heat, the humidity and the broiling sun of Tokyo in August.

If you want my advice-- stay out of Tokyo in summer.  Go in spring or fall.  I'm just not that bright.

Another Nexus update-- inks and coloring!

The official word is Steve Rude will ink himself and also do the lettering for the new 42-page Nexus story dropping this May in Dark Horse Presents from... wait for it... Dark Horse.  Well, not all 42 pages, not right away.  Dark Horse Presents isn't formatted for that.  Expect 10 or so in the first installment.  Glenn Whitmore will do the coloring.

Mystery solved thanks to the Rudes themselves.  I can't wait to read this!  I'm sure Rude and Mike Baron have something amazing in store for us.  But then, they usually do!  And the Dude inking the Dude sounds good to me!

Nexus Update!

According to his wife Jaynelle, Steve Rude has finished the pencils for the new Nexus to be featured in Dark Horse Presents starting with issue #12 this May.  And get this-- it's forty-two pages!  Forty-two pages of Mike Baron story and Steve Rude art.  This means it's going to run for a while and then come together in book form at some point.

That's thrilling news for a die-hard Nexus fan like me.  Back in 1997 I was pretty sure we'd seen the last of Horation Hellpop, Sundra Peale, Dave, Ursula XX Imada and all the rest-- hundreds of them-- and it truly depressed me.  Those were dark times for my favorite titles; just a year before, our beloved Xenozoic Tales faltered and faded away.  Nine years later, Rude tried self-publishing.  That didn't take and the Dude turned his energies towards fine art and gallery shows.  It seemed once again Nexus had gone the way of everything good and fanciful.  Because it's all infinite and crisis now.  Post-modern irony, graphic violence, massive crossovers full of miserable characters,  massive crossovers full of second- and third-hand ideas, crossovers of this, that, and the other. No place for three-legged cyclopes in the South Seas. No place for cucumber trees and oceans of wine. No place for me.

Not that Nexus ever contained cucumber trees or three-legged cyclopes.  It never needed them; it has riches aplenty.  There are some four-armed aliens, though.  So here we are in 2012 and not only is a brand new Nexus story on its way, it's a huge one!  The Dude's done it!  He's back in comics, which so desperately needs artists like him.  And he's brought Baron with him; comics also need writers of his caliber.  Isn't it beautiful? It's like a dream come true. It's the dawning of the age of lovely, intimate things.

Launch of the Underwear Balloon
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen — MOVIECLIPS.com

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen — MOVIECLIPS.com

I wonder who's inking it.  Gary Martin has provided a sympathetic brush on Rude's pencils for a number of years now.  I really enjoyed their teamwork on The Moth, which Martin wrote as well.  He'd be my first choice.  But I'm sure they wouldn't pick some incompetent to replace him if he's not available.  I suppose I could go do some Google searching and find out if Martin's coming back...

The Loomis sisters loom large of late...

You know the Loomis sisters, right?  Creations of that amazing comic duo, writer Mike Baron and artist Steve Rude.  Ring a bell?  You know, the Loomis sisters!  Stacy, Lonnie and Michana Loomis, beloved daughters of General Loomis.

We first meet them in Nexus #25 (First Comics, October 1986).  Much like today's developed or industrialized nations, the Web, the galaxy-spanning league of planets of which the Loomis sisters are citizens, requires vast amounts of energy and resorts to ever more dangerous means to gain it.  To meet this need, the Web government builds the Gravity Well, a vast Goldbergian machine that uses white dwarf stars to provide almost unlimited energy.  With General Loomis as its chief, the project comes at a cost:  the destruction of the Planet Periwinkle and its 500,000 sentient inhabitants.  Elvonic extremists attempt to assassinate Loomis to stop the Gravity Well, but Horatio Hellpop-- better known as the super-powered executioner Nexus-- gets there first.  Despite some misgivings, Nexus executes the general after promising to provide for his girls.

 Back home, the seemingly ordinary suburban sisters close ranks and vow revenge on their father's killer.  And symbolically, they make this pact in that homeliest yet blandest and most cliched of suburban settings, the living room.  Complete with a comfy sofa.

The trust fund he sets up for them and his guilty conscience aside, Nexus soon becomes the Loomis's target.  These kids are smart and it was only a matter of time before they realized who did the deed that broke their hearts.

In The Next Nexus miniseries (First Comics, 1989), the sisters receive Nexus's power when he quits being the cosmic avenger for all of humanity.  Here Baron plays on the old theme of absolute power corrupting absolutely.  The ability to blast people and aliens into atoms has long troubled Nexus, so imagine if you will how it affects his greatest, youngest enemies.  Stacy becomes Ahab-like, conscience drives middle sister Lonnie from her siblings and Michana, the youngest, goes kind of batshit.

When Stacy and Michana finally meet a largely helpless and disillusioned Nexus, they have to fight Scarlett and Sheena, his own daughters by the delightfully formidable despot Ursula X.X. Imada.  It's classic generational warfare, a story as old as the concept of family itself.  This is how the crappy things parents do live on in their children, who repeat them, an object lesson in the way our past continually returns to us in a new shape that's really just a reflection of the old shape.

General Loomis is decent guy, an upstanding officer and widower devoted to his daughters.  He offers them stability and discipline with unconditional love, but unknowingly infects them with the darker aspects of his military profession.  Nexus kills mass-murderers, but struggles with self-recrimination as his own body count rises. Neither man can escape the consequences of his actions.  In the end, can any killing be redeemed by another?

The Loomis sisters would suggest violence in response to violence only creates a cycle of destruction that corrupts as much as power.  Their revenge invites a change that would horrify the father they seek to honor, something especially embodied by Michana whose adorable exterior can barely contain her lust for destruction.  While Lonnie eventually settles into the life of a single woman making her own way in the world, Michana spends her childhood assassinating Ursula XX Imada's enemies and when she screws that up, runs a highly successful teen gang on a mass murder and armed robbery spree.

Angelically pretty, clothing herself in punkish leather and fishnets and toting around a small doll to which she's devoted (another symbol of her warped childhood, she communes with it for advice), Michana's a monstrously narcissistic Bonnie Parker and makes Hit Girl from Kick-Ass look like Cindy Brady.  She terrorizes ordinary citizens, enchants a dimwitted thug, bedevils Nexus, ends up in jail.  In Nexus Nightmare in Blue (Dark Horse, 1997), Michana resurfaces.

 Instead of violent mayhem, Baron involves her in an amusingly sitcomish digression from the main narrative, expertly drawn in all its domestic splendor by Rude.  While Nexus struggles to decide his next mission-- eventually turning to the readers for help-- the surviving Loomis sisters set up housekeeping on Mars.

Reconciling with her sister Lonnie, who now holds the somewhat pathetic yet imminently respectable job of "junior assistant to the mayor's secretary," Michana still dreams of power.  She drops the punk look and adopts the guise of a typical suburban teen, but sneaks out at night to indulge her wild side and meet up with a member of her former gang.  You get the idea it's only a matter of time before she cuts off someone's finger to get a ring.

Biding her time, Michana contents herself with helping Lonnie with her relationships, much to the detriment of sleazy Tom Cruise-lookalike Tom Zeus, a lawyer who specializes in something called "jewelry fraud."  Zeus turns out to be the kind of creepy perv who would sleep with an underage girl and video all his other sexual encounters.  Hundreds upon hundreds of them.  Wealthy, handsome, self-assured and not afraid to get his hands dirty helping out the bouncers of his favorite haunt, a stylish bar, Zeus has it all.  A smitten Lonnie breathlessly recites his possessions:  "A Lambo, a Slambo and a Pomerini GT," no doubt coached by Zeus himself.  I don't know what those things are, but they're probably expensive.  Zeus never fails to mention the pride of his fleet, a 250-meter S&J star cruiser that "sleeps twelve."

S&J, by the way, stands for "Sundra and Jil."  Sundra is Nexus's lover and Jil is her business partner in their very successful star cruiser venture.  A posh, arrogant ass like Zeus would only have a starcruiser from S&J.  The ultimate status symbol.

Zeus never ran into someone versed in military tactics, assassination, spycraft and crime of every type before, though.  Michana learned from the best; that Ursula is no joke and there's probably a bit of her father mixed in as well, plus Nexus.  In the aftermath, Lonnie tells Michana her methods are "extreme," but she's grateful to baby sister for putting Zeus in his place.  The Greek God will no doubt survive to seduce another night, but in the future he may be a bit wiser about how he does it and more honest with his partners.  We hope he learned his lesson well.

The ultimate lesson taught us by the Loomis sisters is you don't want to mess with the Loomis sisters.  Actually, you also don't want to mess with Ursula XX Imada or Scarlett and Sheena.

As Baron and Rude prepare a new Nexus story for Dark Horse, I can't help but wonder if Lonnie and Michana will make another appearance.  It doesn't seem all that likely, but one can always hope.

The Nexus cast consists of hundreds of characters, and the most recent storyline-- the "Space Opera" issues self-published by Rude's Rude Dude Productions-- mostly involve topical religio-political machinations and the birth of Nexus and Sundra's son Harry.  Nexus battles the shade of his father and the two weird little aliens who were his companions when he was a child, more of that recurring "sins of the parents" thread that runs through so much of Nexus.  That makes me think it's the appropriate time for some more Loomis action.

While Lonnie has forgiven Nexus, how can we be sure Michana has?  Various assassins have already targeted the newborn and he seems like a natural target for Michana Loomis.  She could continue to be a powerful enemy for Nexus.  She's deadly as all get out, but it doesn't seem likely the conscienced Nexus could equal Michana's amorality by killing her.  It would mean a powerful ending to her saga, one as horrifying as imagining the psychotic thoughts behind Michana's deceptively sweet countenance.  There's still a lot of unfinished business between her and Scarlett and Sheena.  On the other hand, maybe the influence of her big sister really does have Michana on the path to rehabilitation and redemption.  Or is Lonnie truly as upright as she appears.  Could she be hiding something herself?

I'm pretty confident Baron and Rude will wow us when the time comes.

How the new "Nexus" story came about...

If you're interested (as I obviously am), you should read the blog at Steve Rude's website.  The Rudes just posted an entry called "The Real Story Behind the Nexus Reunion."  It seems to have happened pretty fast.  One minute Rude and Mike Baron were talking on the phone, the next minute Mike Richardson of Dark Horse got involved and a minute after that, Rude was at the drawing board laying down lines with everything in line for a May publication date.  I have to hand it to the fine folks at Dark Horse and especially Richardson for making this happen.  He must have jumped at the chance, and as luck would have it, Dark Horse Presents happens to be enjoying a comeback of its own-- the perfect vehicle for Baron and Rude to revisit Nexus.

While I love the cool photo of Rude working away at his drawing table, my favorite part of all of this is one little comment that seems to be a promise:

A man who speaks as succinctly as his written words, Mike Baron simply added, “I look forward to many more stories with the Dude.”

That has me all wiggly over this yet again!  Rude back in comics!  Baron writing Nexus!  Nexus stories coming our way in 2012 and possibly beyond!  Look for the new story in Dark Horse Presents #12, this May.  They've rung the bell and I'm already slobbering like a conditioned dog.  Conditioned to love delicious comic books!*

*Don't worry.  I'm not going to eat it.  Well, I make no promises.

New Nexus update!

According to Jaynelle Rude, her husband Steve Rude has finished the thumbnails for the new Nexus story (coming at you in 2012 from Rude and writer Mike Baron courtesy the fine people at Dark Horse Comics) and is now hard at work on the actual pages themselves.  Plus this little tantalizing tidbit:  "Steve went over the page count so they're trying to figure out how to fit it in."

A longer story?  Or a little bit of editing, and a bonus extra-length version for the hardcore Nexus fans (like me) when it's collected as a trade?  Either way, it's a win-win situation for those of us who love our comics in flavors of awesome and super-cool.

Look, you don't have to take my word for it!  If you have Facebook, you can see for yourself.  Isn't that cool?  You can look right over his shoulder (it's rude of us to do this to Rude) and if you pay attention, you will see how genius creates a legend.  I didn't realize Rude used a blue pencil to lay down his initial lines.  I've learned something already.  Check out the photo reference of head shadows/lighting, "B&W design" and the little notes and panels scrawled out in what appears to be red marker.  Rude's even got the layout for Ylum's "new concourse" up there so he can keep it consistent with the older comics.

I don't know about you, but I'm suddenly excited for this new year!

Baron and Rude return to Nexus!

This is the season of giving that keeps on giving... to little old me!  But also to you, the savvy comic book fan and possessor of fine taste in illustrated literature.  First came word Boom! Studios is reprinting Terror on the Planet of the Apes and now some even better news:  Mike Baron and Steve Rude are working on a new Nexus story for Dark Horse Presents.

Not only does this mark Steve Rude's return to sequential comics-- long overdue, since he actually attempted to break back into the business on at least one occasion last year-- but it's a new story starring Horatio Hellpop and his cast of thousands.  Nexus is my favorite hero of all and I was disappointed when Dark Horse's previous Nexus series ended and Rude's attempt to self-publish fizzled.  The Nexus universe is full of memorable characters-- Judah Maccabee, the happy-go-lucky avenger/pro wrestler/chef and lover of many women; Sundra Peale, Nexus's own lover, former spy, ace business-person and mother of his child; and Ursula X.X. Imada, the ultimate "dragon lady" with surprising depth.  She's the iron-fisted ruler of the planet Procyon and also the loving mother of Nexus's other children.

There are hundreds more, some funny, some menacing, all richly written by Baron and gorgeously drawn by Rude.  I have to salute Dark Horse for publishing the series, returning the ownership of the characters to Baron and Rude and also keeping the title alive with their lavish hardcover Nexus Archives books.

More Nexus in 2012!  Rude doing comics again!

Comic Report: Japan!

After a long break back in the States, I'm in manga heaven again.  Not that I'm a fan of manga in and of itself.  I enjoy a few titles, consider myself a fan of a few creators, but I don't separate Japanese comics and Western comics.  Comics are comics.  Sure you read Japanese comics right to left and that takes some getting used to, but with the borrowing and blending of elements over the past few decades, a comic story consists of drawings and word balloons arranged in a particular order according to the creator's intent no matter where it comes from or who wrote or drew it.

If you're a regular reader of various Western monthly comics, you have to work a bit harder to find them here in Japan.  There are online sources and if you happen to live in a large enough city, you might find a few odd titles in the English language section in a bookstore.  Just be prepared to pay three to four times the suggested retail price.  I haven't tried downloading any digital comics yet, but I'll give that a try later when I'm more settled and have my own Internet connection.

In the meantime, I'm making do with the comics I brought with me:  the superb Solo #7 (2005) by Mike Allred and family, and the award-winning Nexus: The Origin (1992) by Mike Baron and Steve Rude.

Solo #7 is one of the best things DC's published in the past ten years.  Maybe twenty.  It serves as the perfect antidote to all those gloomy, doomy negative portrayals of their own characters DC's dished up in the years since Identity Crisis, and it's a lot more fun than their similarly nostalgic Wednesday Comics.  Yeah, not every superhero comic should be this kind of poppy fun.  We like our supergods with a touch of realism these days.  But as Batman's faithful butler Alfred points out here, "Why is it the good things are never 'real life,' only the bad?"

Who can argue with Allred's winning cover depiction of Wonder Girl doing the batusi?

Nexus:  The Origin is a bit darker.  It starts with genocide, includes a starvation death and Nexus excusing his own killings by claiming self-defense.  This is the comic that hooked me on Horatio Hellpop, Sundra Peale and all the frog-like aliens and hairy Thunes that inhabit their universe.  Baron condenses the entirety of Nexus's early years into several poignant vignettes and Rude illustrates with his strong sense of anatomy and page design.  Inker Gary Martin perfectly complements Rude's pencils-- I've seen a number of inkers on the Dude, but Martin is far and away my favorite.  Rude "re-mastered" this book in 2007.

These are a couple of thick, meaty magazines that invite you to chew slowly and savor their delicious taste.  Which I suppose taken literally would mean you should eat them and enjoy some paper.  But you know what I mean-- read them over and over again.  Both were well worth dragging thousands of miles across an entire continent and ocean.

Well, I promised you a comic report, didn't I?  If you happen to be in Minami-Funabashi, Chiba prefecture, go to Vivit Square.  The Tsutaya there has a huge selection of Japanese comics, plus a teensy-weensy grouping of some translated ones in their English language book section.  Unfortunately, I can't remember which ones.  Probably Death Note and Vagabond.  The Japanese originals, though, boggle the mind.  So varied in genre and style.  Why aren't there comics about baseball and basketball teams in America?  Where are the simple stories of high school kids falling in love?

I guess they're in the manga section at your local Books-A-Million.  Which, combined with their Western graphic novel section, can't hold a candle to what they have at Tsutaya in Minami-Funabashi.

A curator review of one of Steve Rude's paintings is worth reading

This is a very insightful review of Steve Rude's painting "Cowgirl" on Artists2arttists Social Network (a site I was unfamiliar with before today). The curator of record is Ms. Kristen Woodward and what impresses me about her review-- beyond her ability to encapsulate a fully-developed and expressed critique in a relatively small space-- is how she's picked up on something I've always felt to be a component even of the Dude's comic book work: the satirical element.

When someone's right, she's right. And she clarifies something that was half-formed in my mind. Rude's work has always had "multiple levels of content." His sequential work is both straight adventure and a sort of comedic riff on the inherent goofiness of superheroes. There's always been an element of comedy about it in the dynamics of his figures and his designs of strange aliens and robots with which Rude fills his Nexus pages. In Mike Baron, he had a writer with a similar take, which is why their approach meshed so well and why they produced so many classic stories.

In much the same way, when you look at his paintings like "Cowgirl," you can see Rude drawing on the influence of great pin-up artists, but also playfully commenting on them. The image can be read as simply sexy or as a subtle send-up of sexy artwork. That's where Rude's appeal comes from, beyond his impeccable technique. That's why his art is as fun to look at as it is dazzling with its rendering.

This is all the more impressive because I'm going to guess Ms. Woodward isn't all that familiar with Rude's comic book work where this is more apparent. Whenever I run into a top-flight artistic mind like Ms. Woodward's, I'm just blown away. I was lucky enough to have a couple of professors with a similar sharpness when I was studying art and graphic design at the University of Georgia. One of them accurately called me out on something in front of class and it was a lesson well learned. Of course, I also had some uncommunicative clowns, but I don't dwell on them as much as I do the positive experiences with the good ones.

Congratulations to Steve Rude!

The Dude was named a finalist for Outstanding Watercolor in the May 2011 BoldBrush Painting Competition. His piece, titled "Milk-- Straight Up" colorfully depicts two children leaning over a table while sipping milk through straws. It has a definite Norman Rockwell narrative feel, but the creamy, vivid brushwork and vivid colors are pure Steve Rude. The contest page is worth your time because every single one of the paintings on it is a gorgeous piece of work.

I wonder if DC's reboo-- er-- relaunch and its resetting of any number of characters means the Wednesday Comics project has become redundant. If so, that's too bad. The first one was the perfect series for the nostalgic reader and the second one promised some Rude artwork. Now it seems as though DC is trying to have it both ways and fun oddities like Wednesday Comics may not have a place. We'll see!

Steve Rude wants to return to comics and work for DC, DC is less than enchanted with this idea

Steve Rude has decided to make his return to comics. That's right. According to his latest "Daily Diatribe," Rude's less than happy with the current state of superhero storytelling and feels he can improve things by making a direct contribution. Plus, there's a certain economic necessity. Whatever the reasons, the Dude thought it over, discussed it with his wife and decided to contact the company that most appealed to him, to see if he could do something "high profile" with certain characters.

That company would be DC Comics. The characters-- in order of preference-- are Supergirl, Superman, Big Barda and her Female Furies and OMAC. Rude contacted an editor, got no response. Talked to some executives and another editor. One response. Rude characterizes it as a "polite turn down." I can't imagine why DC would turn down an artist of Steve Rude's caliber. Maybe his proposals didn't fit with their ongoing plans or business model. Maybe his kind of traditional technique-heavy aesthetic is too far out of fashion with the "edgy" crowd-- if the books I bought this past week are any indication, the fans seem to like scratchy-looking artwork. Markets change. I do know he was hoping to do some work on another Wednesday Comics series, but that hasn't panned out so far either. I just think it's sad the Dude-- of all artists-- didn't get so much as a peep of interest from DC about working on characters he seems born to draw.

Here's what I offered: Just a thought-- this past week, I picked up IDW's new The Rocketeer book with art by Mike Allred, John Cassaday and Mike Kaluta. Unfortunately, it's a 4-issue mini so I'm guessing all the art and stories are already in the can. The Dude would've rocked on that. But they must have some upcoming projects where the Dude can make a big splash. Maybe not as big as on Superman or Supergirl-- and a Big Barda story would be too perfect-- but they do seem to be a company that's putting out some intriguing books with some artists Rude's kind of simpatico with as far as aesthetics go.

In another comment I mentioned Dark Horse, but I'm not sure they're in a financial position to do anything with Rude. Plus, he's been there before and the Nexus books he and Mike Baron did for them in the 1990s were more a critical than a sales success. Maybe Dark Horse is more comfortable with the Nexus archives books these days. After all, they've put out a ton of Rude's classic sequential work in that series. Still-- Steve Rude on a Star Wars book? A Hellboy one-shot with Mike Mignola? The new Creepy book (if it's still being published)?

So there you have it. I'm holding out hope some editor at Dark Horse, IDW or even Image-- which seem to be companies that let creators do what they do best without a whole lot of multimedia corporate narrative flak and bother-- will give Rude a call and see what happens. Of course, if he's determined his return to comics is contingent only on his being able to work for DC on these particular characters and no one else, then my suggestions are useless. But if he's just fishing to see what's biting, then someone has to make this happen. The guy is a legend, for the love of Kirby!

Steve Rude talks process

There are a lot of art books about comic book artists. Most of them-- even the very best ones-- tend to dwell on biography, which is not something I'm all that interested in. Unless it's Jack Kirby who grew up in a rough part of New York City, co-created Captain America and then fought in WWII and then partnered with Stan Lee to invent almost the entire Marvel Universe. Even if his line had been insurance sales, Kirby would've still had a pretty incredible life.

What I want to know more about from my favorite artists are their process and tools. How do the greats make the art we love to look at so much and what do they use to make it? One of the great moments of my life was when I got to talk shop with another Jack-- none other than Jack Davis. He let me in on the kind of paper he uses, the brushes and little insightful tidbits such as how his initial sketches are a lot of "scribble-scrabble." That kind of info can be hard to find, probably because most books on comic book artists aren't written by artists but by fans who experience the work from an audience's perspective. Recently, Steve Rude completed a commission to recreate the splash to Captain America #34 from way back in 1944.

According to the Dude, the original is by Kirby himself, but the The Jack Kirby Museum website blog attributes it to Syd Shores. I have no idea what the truth is. Maybe it's Shores working over a Kirby layout. Or vice versa. The Museum says it was done "well after S[imon] & K[irby] departed Timely," and I have no reason to doubt their expertise-- but do you want to tell Steve Rude he's mistaken? I sure as hell don't!

Artist controversy aside, what's important here is Rude didn't merely copy the splash. He zoomed in the plane of vision, tightening the composition, and he gave it more depth of field. In Shore's original, everything takes place along the same plane, which flattens the perspective. Rude pushes the background farther back in layers. This means his version isn't as jumbled and frenetic, but no less action-packed. He also changed Bucky's pose from running along beside Captain America to leaping from the sky above him. Rude's colors are more naturalistic rather than the crude yet vibrant primary-and-secondary color scheme the original comic uses. Yellow sky, Nazis in yellow or green uniforms with purple helmets!

The resulting painting is fun. It captures the spirit of early Captain America without being a mechanical recreation. Whoever commissioned it is getting a beauty. And the rest of us are lucky enough to have been able to follow along as Rude posted his initial sketches, washes and the finished piece as he completed them. He's also posted a short step-by-step on working on this painting as well, complete with a mention of Alex Ross-- who, as Rude notes, "has made a career working in this method."

This is the kind of stuff that fascinates me. Rude goes into his thought process-- the things that go on inside the mind before an artist even touches pencil to paper. He had the original, but he says he's not one of those guys "who get off on this historical stuff." And besides, the image in his head and the one from the comic didn't quite jibe. So he gathered up all the photo reference he would need for uniforms, weaponry and the like. Then Rude started drawing.

Here's where Ross and Albert Dorne enter the story and I abruptly die and float away to art heaven.

The finished artwork looks like this.