Front cover: Dennis Fujitake (GCD)
Cover design: Kim Thompson
Back cover: Michael T. Gilbert
(TCJ Archive)
THE COMICS JOURNAL 52 (December 1979)
Executive Editor/Art Director: Gary Groth
Editor/Circulation Director: Kim Thompson
Consulting Editor: J. Michael Catron
General Assistant: Ed Via
Correspondent (UK): John Dakin
Correspondent (Undergronds): Bruce Sweeney
Mascot: Susanne Hayes
Mascot: Gretchen Meyer
Mascot: Linda at Friendly's
Mascot: Janet Toombs
1. NEWSWATCH: "Batman Movie Planned"
Clint Eastwood, 1979
Ten years before Tim Burton's blockbuster BATMAN movie, this article announces that executive producers of that film, Michael E. Uslan and Benjamin Melniker, had formed Batfilm Productions, Inc. to pursue the making of a film based on the character from the comics.
"Uslan, who taught the first credited college course on comics at the University of Indiana, and served briefly as a writer for DC, is currently employed by United Artists. Melniker is the former Vice-President of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Uslan will produce the movie, while Melniker will serve as the Executive Producer."
"The projected budget of the movie, which is slated for release around Christmas of 1981, is $15 million."
"Superman" was the top grossing movie of 1979, so this seems like a logical move at the time. Even though Sean Connery had THREE movies out from Uslan's United Artists in 1979, I think Clint Eastwood would have made a great Batman coming off "Every Which Way But Loose" and "Escape From Alcatraz" in 1979, imho. Here's a
link to all the United Artists movies running in 1979.
2. BLOOD &THUNDER: Jim Shooter vs. Jeffrey Wasserman
In honor of the memory of Jim Shooter's
passing earlier last year, we'd like to highlight this missive from Shooter in his new-ish role as Editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. It gives a detailed rundown of the corporate structure of Marvel in 1979:
"Our division has a President, Jim Galton, an Executive Vice President and Publisher, Stan Lee, and several other VPs and executives, including myself. We all work only for our division, the Marvel Comics Group. None of us has any connection to any other Cadence Division or Company.[...]"
3. COMICS REVIEWS: "Good Aardvark Art" by Kim Thompson
Editor Kim Thompson analyzes very early days CEREBUS, specifically the first 12 issues of the series.
"What [Carl] Barks and [Dave] Sim have in common, and what so few creators, particularly nowadays, seem to have, is honesty vis-a-vis their creations. Barks wrote straight from the heart; Sim, once he'd shucked off the initial parodic shallowness in Cerebus, seems similarly sincere."
GCD
4. COMICS REVIEWS: "The Hole in the Floating Donut" by R. Fiore
Welcome to one of the longest tenured writers for TCJ! Robert Fiore, well-known for "Funnybook Roulette", contributed as recently as
2025.
That Fiore was born to be a Journal critic is borne out by his mercilless deconstruction of a mediocre Marvel effort:
"But what is finally damning about WOTSR is that it presumes to say something about good and evil and then doesn't deal with the question at all. In Moench's cosmology evil is an outside force, and will disappear for the most part if that force is obliterated. This idea should be familiar, as it is the rationale for 90% of all the monstrous acts perpetrated in this century. How is evil fought? By pure, sweet innocence. Consider all the races slaughtered in human history, the Jews and the Armenians, the Aztecs and the Iroqouis, the Ukrainians and the Ibos. All known for culture, learning, humanism, most probably better than their oppressors. What does Moench's cosmology say about them, that they weren't 'innocent' enough? That they should have recruited a white wolf? When these issues are raised they must be answered, or the result is empty blather."
5. INTERVIEW: "An Interview With Rick Marschall, Collector, Historian, Cartoonist, Comics Editor, and Former Strange Duck at Marvel" Rick Marschall interviewed by Gary Groth
A real turning point in the direction of The Journal, mostly forgotten due to the Harlan Ellison interview in the next issue. There are a ton of classic cartoons and comic strips reproduced along with the interview and Marschall discusses them at length. I feel this provides a link to the future Nemo Magazine and classic newspaper strip reprints published by Fantagraphics in the 80s, continuing with the idiosyncratic choices of "The Top 100 (English-language) Comics of the Century" list in 1999, and even to the current partnership between Sunday Press and Fantagraphics.
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