New Alternative and Small Press Comix Arrivals (April Week 5)

Alternative comics newspapers new and old...

1. THE COLUMBUS SCRIBBLER #14 (The Columbus Scribbler) Columbus OH

FANzine Live screenshot

2. SCARFFF #17 (Scaarfff Comics Newspaper) Seattle WA

store

3. SMOKE SIGNAL #42 (Domino Books) Brooklyn NY

4. ANT DODGER by Dash Shaw (The Copacetic Comics Company)

5. PAPER RODEO #1 (Internet Archive)

Issues #2 #4 and #6 also free on IA

Inspired by this COMICS PEOPLE video and Kelly Froh in COMIXITY.

Comix Reading List #69-#70: Bernie Wrightson on Marvel Unlimited

69. MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL 22: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN IN HOOKY (Marvel, April 1986) Marvel Unlimited

Bernie Wrightson delivers page after page of complex and horrific creatures to battle Spider-Man in this great bit of atypical 80s comics greatness. This would look great in a hardcover tabloid-sized reissue!

Detail from Wrightson's gruesome interior art.

Author Susan Putney also published half of an ACE Double, AGAINST ARCTURUS (1972) according to isfdb.org.

70. MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL: THE INCREDIBLE HULK AND THE THING IN THE BIG CHANGE (Marvel, 1987) Marvel Unlimited

This one is a more typical, humorous science fiction superhero team-up tale. Wrightson's art is still way above average, but not as inspired as HOOKY.

(There’s also a four issue PUNISHER miniseries on Marvel Unlimited, but it's only penciled by Wrightson.)

If you want to see some true horror by Bernie Wrightson published by Marvel, Ray Carcases does a video of Wrightson's story in EPIC ILLUSTRATED #25 (at the 17:15 mark). This one scarred me for life at 14! 

Comix Reading List #63-#68: Richard Corben on Marvel Unlimited

63. STARTLING STORIES: BANNER 1 (Marvel, 2001) Marvel Unlimited

64. STARTLING STORIES: BANNER 2 (Marvel, 2001) Marvel Unlimited

65. STARTLING STORIES: BANNER 3 (Marvel, 2001) Marvel Unlimited

66. STARTLING STORIES: BANNER 4 (Marvel, 2001) Marvel Unlimited

67. GHOST RIDER 6 (Marvel, 2007) Marvel Unlimited

68. GHOST RIDER 7 (Marvel, 2007) Marvel Unlimited

I had very low expectations going in to these two series, Corben pretty much illustrated other people's stories and characters. However, he doesn't compromise his style in any way (no female nudity, though), and it was fun seeing his interpretations of Doc Samson, Hulk, and Ghost Rider. The stories do give Corben some dark shit to wrap his art around. BANNER sees the titular character attempt suicide, then later Doc Samson attempts to euthanize him (to keep General Ross from lobotomizing Banner). GHOST RIDER has Johnny Blaze fighting the devil and impaling him with a flaming cross!

Comix Reading List #62: The Complete Fletcher Hanks on Comic Book Plus

 62. FANTASTIC COMICS #1 (December 1939) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

 "Space Smith"

FANTASTIC COMICS #2 (January 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

 "Space Smith"

Space Smith Dot Battle

FIGHT COMICS #1 (January 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

JUNGLE COMICS #1 (January 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle"

John Carpenter movie alien or African tree?

FANTASTIC COMICS #3 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Space Smith"

 "Stardust"

FIGHT COMICS #2 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

JUNGLE COMICS #2 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

Creepy photobomb

PLANET COMICS #2 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Tiger Hart of Crossbone Castle on the Planet Saturn"

.

no comment

FANTASTIC COMICS #4 (March 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Space Smith"

 "Stardust"

FIGHT COMICS #3 (March 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

JUNGLE COMICS #3 (March 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

FANTASTIC COMICS #5 (April 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Space Smith"

 "Stardust"

FIGHT COMICS #4 (April 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

JUNGLE COMICS #4 (April 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

Economy of line, maximum horror

DARING MYSTERY COMICS #4 (May 1940) Marvel Unlimited

"Whirlwind Carter"

FANTASTIC COMICS #6 (May 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Yank Wilson"

 "Space Smith"

 "Stardust"

FIGHT COMICS #5 (May 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

JUNGLE COMICS #5 (May 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

DARING MYSTERY COMICS #5 (June 1940) Marvel Unlimited

"Whirlwind Carter"

Pop art in 1940

FANTASTIC COMICS #7 (June 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

Scientific American it ain't!

FIGHT COMICS #6 (June 1940) Comic Book Plus

"Big Red McLane"

Biff Sock Bing Bang

JUNGLE COMICS #6 (June 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

 FANTASTIC COMICS #8 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Space Smith"

 "Stardust"

FIGHT COMICS #7 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

 JUNGLE COMICS #7 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

PLANET COMICS #7 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Buzz Crandall of the Space Patrol"

FIGHT COMICS #8 (August 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

 JUNGLE COMICS #8 (August 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

FANTASTIC COMICS #10 (September 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

FIGHT COMICS #9 (September 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Big Red McLane"

Last Big Red

JUNGLE COMICS #9 (September 1940) Comic Book Plus

"Fantomah"

FANTASTIC COMICS #11 (October 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

JUNGLE COMICS #10 (October 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

The beauty and the horror

FANTASTIC COMICS #12 (November 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

JUNGLE COMICS #11 (November 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

FANTASTIC COMICS #13 (December 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

JUNGLE COMICS #12 (December 1940) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

BIG 3 #2 (January 1941) Comic Book Plus

"Stardust"

FANTASTIC COMICS #14 (January 1941) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

The Hanks Incoherency

JUNGLE COMICS #13 (January 1941) Comic Book Plus

 "Fantomah"

Random Infanticide

 FANTASTIC COMICS #15 (February 1941) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust"

 Calling Frederic Wertham!

JUNGLE COMICS #14 (February 1941) Comic Book Plus

"Fantomah"

FANTASTIC COMICS #16 (March 1941) Comic Book Plus

 "Stardust" (Racist images and language)

Last Stardust

JUNGLE COMICS #15 (March 1941) Comic Book Plus

"Fantomah"

Last Fantomah

GREAT COMICS #1 (November 1941) Comic Book Plus

 "Moe M. Down"

Inventory story: Big Red story redrawn and repurposed

GREAT COMICS #2 (December 1941) Comic Book Plus

 "Moe M. Down"

Big Red McLane stories with faces redrawn by Seymour Reit (GCD), this one is directly from FIGHT COMICS #9

Buff bodies with bigfoot faces

I wanted to read some Fletcher Hanks "Stardust" stories after seeing Van Jensen's STARDUST tribute book crowdfunding on Zoop last year. Unfortunately, the definitive collection of Fletcher Hanks TURN LOOSE OUR DEATH RAYS AND KILL THEM ALL!: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FLETCHER HANKS, edited by Paul Karasik and published by Fantagraphics, is long out of print. 

Luckily, public domain site Comic Book Plus ended up having all of Fletcher Hanks comic stories from Fox and Fiction House Comics uploaded (with two stray Timely stories found on Marvel Unlimited). Thanks to them, and Grand Comics Database who had a list of all Hanks published work, for making this reading marathon possible.

I had looked through the first Fantagraphics Hanks collection many years ago at the local library and wasn't that interested. It definitely benefits the reader to experience all of Fletcher Hanks, as his work is intense and uneven at it's best and lethargic and incoherent at it's worst. He repeats himself endlessly which is fine when you are Liefeld-ing and using shortcuts to draw faster, like showing Stardust from the back when he's flying or space battles from an extreme distance where Hanks is basically drawing abstract patterns of dots. These work better when you compare the beauty of Fantomah's human form and the detail in the jungle background alongside the deep well of creativity in the creation of all His weird creatures and aliens. It's a balancing act, not exactly linear, as Fletcher Hanks doesn't necessarily evolve or improve but rather creates a bunch of stories in a flurry then stops! He obviously cared more for some series than others, in my opinion anyway, on reading his work he put more effort into the art of "Fantomah" yet he didn't even bother to plot "Big Red McLane" for most of it's run and the drawing on that feature was unenthusiastic (to put it kindly) compared to his other work. Stardust had some complex stories and had a minor continuity later with the Fifth Columnists, but so many were absolutely incoherent ("Tiger Hart" is another example). I guess other people thought these stories were bad in a good way, maybe this is what lead to Art Spiegelman, Francoise Mouly, and Paul Karasik (future Hanks historian) to snatching Hanks from obscurity and re-introducing him in RAW #5 (March 1983).

I don't know overall what I think of Fletcher Hanks and all the work he left behind, but I have to lean toward a positive opinion of these comics as 86 years later they still don't make comics that look like whatever was going on in Hanks brain back then.

(All illustrations from Comic Book Plus scans, except Pop Art from Marvel Unlimited)

New Alternative and Small Press Comix Arrivals (April Week 4)

 All New York stores this week...

1. FREEDOM FIGHTER #1 by Wayne Coe  (Pure Folly Books) Hudson, NY

2. ANTARCTIC SEAL by Leomi Sadler (Gutter Pop Comics) Buffalo, NY

3. AMERICAN VORTEX by Carlos Gonzalez (Toy Box Coffin) NYC

4. PICTOGRAMS by Warja Lavater (Domino Books) Brooklyn, NY

5. FRENZY by Tetsunori Tawaraya (Desert Island Books) Brooklyn, NY

Here's a blog post gathering all of Terence Fuller's Tetsunori Tawaraya videos.

Comix Reading List #61: Spirits of the Dead

 61. SPIRITS OF THE DEAD PAPERBACK EDITION (Dark Horse) Hoopla

I'm slowly familiarizing myself with Richard Corben's comics work. These are all adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories and his work brings out the best in Corben. There's rotting corpses, necrophilia, voluptuous women, wonderfully exaggerated faces, and hideously distorted bodies. I particularly liked "The Raven" adaptation. The art starts out very slick and semi-realistic and gets more and more exaggerated as the main character descends into madness.

The Raven

Watching Comics: Alternative Cartoonists YouTube Channels (and One Podcast)

Thanks to the youtube algorithm I've recently found a couple new channels helmed by cartoonists, that coupled with the sudden return a former twitter mutual to posting on their channel inspired this list. All pretty much follow the "haul video" format in one way or another.

SMALL PRESS EXPRESS (Adam Yeater/Blood Desert)

THE HERCULES PETIX ACADEMY OF COMIC BOOK STUDIES (Greg Petix)

COMIC PEOPLE (Nicholas Forker/Mike Shea Wright)

THICK LINES PODCAST (Katie Skelly/Sally Madden)

Listen here or patreon

New Alternative and Small Press Comix Arrivals (April Week 3)

Zines about comics...

1. COMIXITY #2 (Larry Reid) 

So excited to see another issue of the Larry Reid edited COMIXITY, it's wonderful to have a local-oriented comics newsletter. Larry and Beth Rowland-Reid profile creator L. Armstrong, Colin Blanchette delivers a mini-history of Dennis Eichhorn, and Kelly Froh on the importance of alt-weeklies in Seattle. Here's a poster for the event mentioned with the L. Armstrong interview...

Thanks to Colin Blanchette for sending us this, much appreciated.

2. CAPFAN #1 (Rob Imes)

Rob Imes of DITKOMANIA delivers a solo article zine devoted to Captain America from the 1940s to present.

3. CANON #3 (Silver Sprocket)

The newest issue makes it into stores!

4. BUT IS IT COMIC AHT...? #4 (Domino Books)

A new classic edited by Austin English and August Lipp. In the BUBBLES, STRANGERS, CANON, COMICSBLOGGER family of modern comics zines.

5. MINESHAFT #18 (Wow Cool)

"Ink + Anguish" by Jay Lynch/ Ed Piskor, both gone now.

Longtime small press cartoonist Larry Blake passed away recently, his art was instantly recognizable. Talking Small Press Comics says a respectful goodbye to this well-regarded artist whose work spanned six decades from the 70s until today...

Comix Reading List #59-60: Bones Pulp Mini Comics + You Think You Are Meditating...

58. BONES PULP MINI COMIC (Steven Solomon) 

59. YOU THINK YOU ARE MEDITATING BUT WE CAN HEAR YOU SNORE/EAT AN ONION LIKE AN APPLE

This is the first time anyone has sent comics in to the blog, so thanks to Speed Paste Robot aka Steven Solomon. It's an added bonus that these two books are all around excellent art objects and comix.

I'm not a reviewer, but I would call this visual poetry. It looks like automatic or found writing paired with imagery to move the narrative forward. Solomon brings the reader into the narrative experience by using blacks to obscure panels, repeating images, and scrambling words. That's just my own inference, Solomon carefully constructs his words and pictures to be open to interpretation. 

These are exactly the sorts of comix that I'm looking for every week, and I recommend you follow Steven Solomon as Speed Paste Robot on bluesky or check out their store at the first link above.

New Alternative and Small Press Comix Arrivals (April Week 2)

 SPECIAL UK EDITION:

1. Matt Simmons opens Zine Freak in Lancaster (bluesky)

Matt Simmons at Zine Freak

According to John Freeman's downthetubes.net "Comic Retailer Spotlight: Zine Freak, Lancaster":

"Zine Freak is an indie comic and zine shop, located in Lancaster's Assembly Rooms emporium. It's run by Matt Simmons, creator of titles such as FUTURE EGG and MUKBANG [...]."

2. Mat Greaves successfully crowdfunded the newest issue of UNDERGROUND KINGDOM COMIX PRESENTS: ROMANCE on March 15th.

Available from Gosh Comics, London

3. KNOLLER by Benjy (Gosh London)

This mysterious entry is described as "Comics anthology from Benjy and Hypnotator Comics".  I couldn't find anything online about this rather silly looking underground, which makes it worth checking out.

4. DEMON SMOOCH AND THE GARDEN OF DELIGHTS by Will Humberstone (Gosh Comics London)

Pre-order available for 5/14/24 release

5. MY BODY UNSPOOLING by Leo Fox (Gosh Comics London)

Pre-order available for 5/15/24 release

US pre-order from the publisher

I bought this at Shortbox a couple years ago, I give it my highest recommendation.