Missing Release Dates!

As I have grown older and my avid interest in all things Comic Book related has mellowed, compounded by the absolute inability of almost any artist that I admire to keep to a regular publishing schedule.....

Well, the upshot of it all is that I miss books when they come out.

The latest example would be 

by Brian Stelfreeze,

someone that I have watched with awe since his first book,

Cycops, from Comics Interview, way back in the 1980's.

Mister Stelfreeze drew in a very stylized fashion but with a great deal of self-assurance and he has never lost either quality.  It has always been a shame, to me, that he has done so many covers and that I could not afford to buy a comic book just for a cover!

Anyway, back to the point.  I don't buy the Diamond Catalogue, "Previews", anymore and it is easy to miss things on the long list of Independent Comics that publish, on their web site, each week.

As a consequence, I missed the fact that the fourth issue of Daymen had been released, way back at the end of July and I only realized that fact a week ago.

Luckily, the helpful guys at The Beguiling were able to find one for me in their racks.

Thanks very much guys.

It happens far too often and sadly, I don't really care as much as I used to.  There was a time when I was sure that my passion for collecting would never wane but I am older and wiser now.

One more beautiful image from Brian and it's off to bed for me.

Page Layout in Comic Books

The western world reads from the left to the right and the top to the bottom of a printed page of text and these rules apply to a comic book page too.

In the early days, when comic books were made by reprinting comic strips from the newspapers, no one gave any thought to how well the cut up strips would "read" in a different layout.

The original format, of probably four panels in a row, for most cases, read well enough in a left to right orientation but cutting those four panels up and rearranging them in two tiers of two panels per tier... exposed some short comings in design for easy reading.

Despite the commonly held belief, that comic books are merely an arrangement of images in a grid, why do some examples of the medium stand out from the crowd?

READABILITY

It is a fine art, one where the artist subtly leads the reading eye through the panels on the page, reinforcing the pattern of reading that we all learned in childhood.

LEFT to RIGHT and TOP to BOTTOM

I was a very slow learner and it took me a very long time to be able to separate the storytelling from the story.

It is also very interesting, that in all the books about making comics, all the interviews with the artists make comics, most of them never remark on the importance of 

learning how to direct the reading eye.

In the summer of 1989, I sat in a seminar given by the very talented Ty Templeton at a Comic Book Convention at the Westbury Hotel on Yonge Street, here in Toronto.

Ty did his best, within the limits of a one hour tutoring session, to give us an idea of what was involved in the designing of a comic book page and it still took me another twenty years to really be able to see it!

Anyway, enough chatter.  Here is an annotated page, drawn  by the talented and prolific Matt Howarth, that displays his clear understanding of his craft.

In fact, this page almost acts as two pages because a page turn over could have occured at the point where the diver enters the water... What happens next?... but instead, the reading eye is dragged up to the top of the page and then pulled back down through the last two panels for a more interesting page turn over (human interest is now involved with the introduction of a new character) when the diver lands on top of the girl.

I hope that someone out there finds something helpful in my ramblings about making comic books.  It is a fascinating subject and I have enjoyed tracking it down, through the years, to arrive at the understanding that I have today.

One last thing.  JOE KUBERT had an amazing understanding of page layout and anything that he drew, especially in his later years, should be considered to be Comic Book Layout 101.  The two books that he wrote on the subject,

Superheroes : Joe Kubert's Wonderful World of Comics

and

Joe Kubert's Comic Book Studio

should be required reading for anyone who is interested in learning how to be a comic book artist.

McGinnis, McNeil and Barbara Bode

I ran across a listing for this the other day

a new book about Robert McGinnis and I hadn't

heard a word about it!

Titan Books of the U.K. are the publishers and they

brought out the Artist's Edition of Walt Simonson's

"Alien", a lovely piece of work, last year.

I think that I first took notice of the art of Mr. McGinnis after reading an article about him in Greg Theakston's "The Betty Pages".

And then, there is Carla Speed McNeil...

I discovered her "Finder" stories in the original collections,

at a comic store in Kingston, Ontario.  I had never heard of the series and I was amazed to discover a "New" talent who had already published a large volume of work!

 I am very happy to see this new collection appearing on the market, it has been too long.  The stories are collected from their original appearances, in the new Dark Horse Presents, a fine publication.  Unfortunately, as an anthology, it simply contained too many strips that I wasn't interested in, to justify buying it as it came out; despite the presence of Finder.

Finally, there is Barbara Bode.

The image bellow is the only one that I could find on the Web and I was surprised by that.  Barbara was the wife of Vaughn Bode (the creator of Cheech Wizard and a whole universe of other colourful characters) and Vaughn always sited her as the model for his "Bode Broads".

The life of a muse is never easy and from all reports Vaughn was not the easiest person to peacefully co-exist with.  Mark Bode, Vaughn and Barbara's son, said, "...we had just ridden on the tail of a space cowboy comet, which was Vaughn's life with us."

Vaughn died in 1975, as the tragic result of a consciousness raising experiment and in that same year, she met Rick Falcon.  From all accounts, Rick was a exactly what she needed after the turbulent years with Vaughn and they were very happy together.  

Barbara passed away in 2007.

A Typical Week's Worth of Books

I indulge my love of comic books and art books by,

almost every week, on New Comic Book Day,

visiting the book shops of downtown Toronto.

I don't usually come home without at least one addition to the collection and fairly often, quite a few new items are in my backpack.

So, here is a typical "haul":

Starting out at the BMV book shop at

10 Edward Street, close to the new location of the Silver Snail Comic Shop.

I already own this one, I bought it when it was released and I was 18 and living in Birmingham, England.  It was cheap enough that I couldn't pass over the chance of a "reading copy" and it is in lovely condition too.

Somewhere along the line, I had stopped being overly impressed by Dean Yeagle and his creation, "Mandy".

Don't get me wrong, Dean is a wonderful cartoonist but the subject matter was always the same and I am no longer a teenage boy!

That being said, the books weren't cheap when they were released and that played a part too.  This one, I just simply overlooked and at $15, for a collection of images by a variety of artists, was too good to pass up.

This was in the $2 bin and it has some lovely photos of pretty women in luxurious lingerie.  I have a separate library of photography and images, which this will fit right into.

Moving on, to the largest BMV outlet, up on Bloor Street, I found these treasures:

Amazing X-Men #4 by McGuinness

Amazing X-Men #5 by McGuinness

Der Mond, a very attractive art book about a japanese artist, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.  A book that I had checked-out at it's full price of $50, being sold for $10, meant that it too was going home with me!

This one was simply a lucky find, in the 50 cent box.  The lead story is by the fledgeling Travis Charest.

Neal Adams Presents, Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Menace.

Published by Vanguard/David Spurlock

in 2006, this one just didn't register on my radar.

I already own the large compilation of the same strip, that was published in the 1980's, soon after the strip's initial run in Adam's "Echo of Future Past" magazine.

But after rereading the extensive interview with Michael Golden, the artist, in the issue of Modern Masters about him and his career, it was an item that I wanted for the collection.  It had been sitting in the glass case/check-out counter at BMV for weeks, calling my name...

 After that stop, I walked across the road to The Labyrinth, a tiny, well stocked Art Book Shop that has the misfortune of facing the largest discount book store in the city.

The owner does his best to stock the type of publications that appeal to Art Geeks like me and this is one of them.  Produced in England and costing a staggering $35, here in Canada, this is a lovely magazine.  It is comparable to the Illustrators Magazine produced in the USA, but with a slant toward British and European artists.  Worth every penny.

One last Port-of-Call.

The Beguiling, on Markham Street.

I was completely unaware that this was to be Stuart Immonen's last issue on this title and it is a shame to see him go.  As I have said before, Stuart is a total craftsman and I have enjoyed poring over his pages, trying to glean the arcane knowledge of how to tell stories effectively in a comic book.

I wish him well in his future endeavours and wherever he goes, whatever he does, I will be buying it and learning from him.

That's all Folks!

Books, Books & More Books

I have been a collector of comic books and art books for over forty years and while I am not a "pack rat", at least I don't think I am, my collection is fairly large.

Today, I finally had to do something about the books that would not fit on the, already extensive, shelves and that had made navigating the floor space an issue.  I hasten to add, that this is a room set aside for the books and not all over the house!

So, using the age old method of boards laid across milk-crates, I created a centre island, two shelves tall, plus the floor beneath and set about tidying up.  The end result is very satisfying but there are still a couple of areas of the floor that wouldn't fit.

Ah, well.  Baby steps.

I would impress upon anyone reading this, that I also have a second room that houses the Girlie Magazines that I collected in my younger days, comic book and Science Fiction related fanzines and all of my Art Instruction books.  The same room also has piles of reference material, often called an Artist's Morgue, my cartoons, the original art that I have bought over the years, my poster collection, a filing cabinet, a drawing table and boxes of old video tapes.

I need to tidy that mess up too but as I said above, baby steps.

I must sound like a buying machine but seriously, it has taken me 40 years to get into this state, it did not happen over night.

In the last couple of years, since I turned 55, I find that I buy fewer items but the ones I do buy are usually expensive.  For example, the IDW Artist's Editions, which are lovely but at $120 to $175 Canadian, they knock a hole in my old wallet.  I have most of the volumes that they have published so far but some of the newer offerings have not tempted me.

I still think that the one dedicated to Will Eisner's The Spirit is the best of the bunch, mainly because it is comics 101 for we students of the medium to pore over.  It is a revelation to see whole panels cut out and patched over with a different image.  Not to mention all the other repairs and corrections.

It is not very interesting or exciting to buy a book where the original art is as "clean" as the printed page.  As an amateur cartoonist, I understand the personal drive toward a pristine original but it won't teach anyone looking at it a thing; it is the repairs, the overworking with a better idea, that are ultimately more informative and interesting.

One last thing, Stuart Immonen.

This Image is from his own web page

and I do hope he will not object to it's use here.

I was not an immediate fan of his work when he began

but over the last few years, probably since he worked on the Ultimate Fantastic Four, he has impressed the HECK out of me.

His recent run on the All New X-Men is stunning and looking at his pages is a lesson in how to draw comics that flow.  Panel to panel, tier to tier and page to page.  The only other people, in my mind anyway, who made comics that worked so well, were Alex Toth and Joe Kubert.  I mean it.

On top of being a marvellous technician, he is also a work horse.  Of the 29 issues of the title released so far, he has turned in 21 and done all that work in only 20 months!

Mister Immonen, as little as it is, I salute you.

The fact that he is a fellow Canadian is just icing on the cake!

Alan of Japetus Comixx and Rog Peyton of Andromeda Bookshop

The very first shop that I ever bought comics from was a bookstore at 201 Corporation Street, in Birmingham, England.  A couple of guys that I had met, through an advert that one of them had placed, in a Fanzine called "Thing", led me to it. 

"Thing" was produced by Doug Gifford and he had advertised it in the weekly publication, The Exchange & Mart, where I discovered his Ad and ordered a copy from him.

The store was named Japetus, after one of the moons of Saturn, although I am not really sure why.  Memory being what it is, I think it was owned and operated by students from Birmingham University but I digress.

Down a flight of stairs, in the basement, was a tiny little space with a counter and a box of NEW American comics!  Behind the counter was a tall, skinny, long haired young man name Alan.

This is an example of their "Free for the Taking" checklists.  (Please ignore the issues of Tales to Astonish that I once to owned, they left my hands more than 40 years ago.)

I bought the issues of Frank Brunner's Doctor Strange, appearing in Marvel Premiere, where the character meets God, from him.  From the date of publication for those issues, that would have been in late 1973 or early 1974.

I may have met Alan before this, once again, after all this time my memory is hazy.  There was a secondhand bookshop in Digbeth, by the Birmingham Intercity Coach Station and I used to buy a lot of old Marvel Comics from them, between 1971 and 1973.  I think Alan may have been one of the many young men who worked there and who once asked me why I never bought any DC comics.

Another digression, the secondhand bookshop was owned by the same man who owned "Cyclops Sounds", a record store located in a row of shops, that may have been the Piccadilly Arcade.  Someone had painted a poor copy, of a Neal Adams drawing, of Cyclops of the X-Men, with his eye-beams blasting, as the store's banner.

On the very same day, I also visited the newly opened Andromeda Bookshop on Summer Row and made a subscription order, for several titles, with Rog Peyton, the owner.  Imported comics, that, to my everlasting shame, I never did return to buy!

Rog, being the wonderful man that he was, (and I hope, still is) didn't allow that fact to interfere with my becoming a regular customer; a year or so later.  Thank you, Sir!

Following a Dream and other nonsense!

I have been enamoured of the comic book genre for years and years, without ever really stopping to wonder where it all began.

I have the vaguest memories of  of reading an British weekly comic book for children, with the title "Robin", before I was five years old.  According to the Wikipedia page about it, the magazine lasted from 1953 to 1969.

The strips within Robin were the usual stuff of the time.  Television shows for children, converted into comic strip format mixed in with other preschool style characters.  I guess it must have worked for me because I have been a fan ever since.

Then came RANGER, which began in 1965 and was incorporated into the "Look and Learn" magazine by 1966.  As the Wikipedia page says, it is now best remembered as the birthplace of "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire", originally drawn by Don Lawrence, which continued in the Look and Learn until it's final issue in 1982.

I guess that my tastes had shifted because I didn't follow the Trigan Empire into the Look and Learn. Instead, by 1967, I was buying the Odham's Press comic book, "Terrific", which was a companion to their "Fantastic", which eventually absorbed Terrific in 1968.

Terrific, reprinted strips, in weekly pieces, that originated in the Marvel Comics offices in the USA.  It was here, in glorious Black & White, that I fell in love with The Avengers, Dr. Strange, Iron Man and The Sub-Mariner.  I discovered the powerhouse of comic book art that was Jack Kirby and I also fell completely under the spell of Steve Ditko and Dr. Strange.

As it was 'want to do', the publisher continued to roll one title into another, until the "Power Comic" magazines, Fantastic, Terrific, Wham, Smash and Pow, were all in one comic book.  I used to have a bag, full of the issues, folded open to the episodes of The Fantastic Four, until we moved again, in 1970 and they all went in the bin!

An example of the Odhams Press Power Comics.

Ah, but at the new school, in the new city, I met guys who were main-lining the excitement of the original, four colour, imported American Comics.  They were impressed by my knowledge of the histories of the Marvel characters and pretty soon we were all collecting different characters, in their own titles.

Steve Rogers, no kidding, collected Spider-Man.  Andy Morton collected The Avengers.  Steve Walker collected Dare-Devil and I collected The Fantastic Four.  It was a neat set up and we continued that way, helped along by Andy's discovery of a second hand book dealer, who sold old comics, until 1972, when the other guys discovered girls and sold out their collections to me.  Ah, Birmingham, England and the smell of all those old comic books!

I continued to collect, eventually connecting up with other fans of the medium.  They, in turn, introduced me to the fledgeling comic dealers of the time, 1973 into 1974 and I dived right in.

Some of the people and places, that I will cover in more detail later on, were, in no particular order:

Alan of Japetus Bookshop,

Peter Lennon, dealer,

VJ an Indian guy, dealer,

Andromeda Bookshop,

Phil Clarke and Nostalgia & Comics

Toronto, Canada, 1980 onward.

The Silver Snail,

The Dragon Lady,

Unknown Worlds,

Now & Then Books, Kitchener,

Unicorn/Worlds Collide, Oshawa,

Gnu Books, Oshawa,

Comics & More,

Planet X,

The Beguiling,

The Labyrinth,

BMV.

That's it folks.  More later.