The Dark Spider-Knight

Think you know Batman's origins? Here, from the back of a Chinese toy, is the truth. (Thanks to Janice Gelb for sharing this!)

A Life in Four Colors (Part Thirty-Two)

1965 was a year in which I learned that not all comic book writers and artists were created equal—at least, not in talent.

Prior to this year, I was pretty much a comic book omnivore. While there were some characters I liked more than others, I'd rarely pass up the opportunity to read any comic book, and I seemed to enjoy the mediocre and second-rate books every bit as much as the great stuff. But I had become more and more aware of styles as my comic book collection grew, and by 1965, I had begun to recognize a few favorites even without seeing their signatures or the credits.

The first artist whose distinctive style really appealed to me was  Steve Ditko. Ditko's art was quirky, his characters were often dismally plain and ordinary, and his action scenes lacked the raw vitality of Jack Kirby's or Gil Kane's. But the emotion, the moodiness, and the normality of his world vision appealed to me. Artistically, I came to love his heavy ink lines, his bold black shadows and accents, and his flexibly distorted anatomy. I came to recognize those distinctive Ditko hands, those contortiionist poses, those striking angles. I soon realized that I could even spot Ditko's inkwork over Jack Kirby's pencils, as in the remarkable Fantastic Four #13.

At the same time, I realized that some of my favorite war comics were drawn by the same guy who had drawn those great Hawkman stories in Brave and Bold (alas, he didn't stick with the book when Hawkman got his own series--and as much as I like Murphy Anderson's work, it never captivated me the same way). That artist was Joe Kubert, and he was the primary reason I fell in love with DC's war books.

Then there was Wally Wood--perhaps one of the best "linemen" in comics. His bold inks, his remarkably cinematic backgrounds, his alluring women--there was no one like him. Daredevil went from a second-string hero to one of Marvel's best when Wood signed on for a few issues. He made T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents every bit as exciting as the best Marvel or DC titles.

Carmine Infantino's clean, angular linework and distinctive architecture was every bit as distinctive as Ditko's, but in a totally different way. Where Ditko's art was rounded and fluid, Infantino's was angular and sharp-edged.  His Adam Strange epitomized all that was science fictional in comics, as far as I was concerned.

And then there was Jack Kirby. No artist captured more explosive energy on every page than Kirby. He truly defined the Marvel look in the mid-1960s, which was probably why Marvel brought Kirby in to illustrate the early issues of virtually every series they launched. If anyone could make a book a hit, it was Kirby. And I came to love his art.

And those were the artists I loved... but they weren't the only artists I came to recognize. Once I realized that not everyone drew the same way, I started looking for other defining styles, and I realized that there were other artists whose work was identifiable just by the way they drew. Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, Russ Heath, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito (I didn't know who did what, but I recognized their collaborative work), Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Curt Swan, Jim Mooney, Mike Sekowsky--I could spot their work the minute I flipped through the book.

That was a real eye-opener for me. Until then, I had thought of comics as almost an assembly-line production; it never really occurred to me that different people might draw the same characters in different ways. But once I realized that there was a reason that Superman looked different in Justice League than in Superman, for instance,  I made my first significant move towards appreciating comics as an art form, not merely as entertainment.

And that awareness changed my life, believe it or not. Once I recognized the people behind my favorite comics, I wanted to know about those people. As I merged that awareness with my recent discovery of fanzines,  I was laying the groundwork for my future without even realizing it.

A Life in Four Colors (Part Thirty-One)

The first fanzine I ever read was Rocket's Blast Comicollector. I'm fairly sure that I first discovered it through a small ad in Marvel Comics of that era, but I can't pinpoint exactly which book first introduced me to the world of fanzines.

By today's standards, the RBCC was little more than an adzine. For those not familiar with the vernacular, I'll explain: a fanzine features articles and creative content produced by fans, focusing on a specific area of interest. In the case of RBCC, that field of interest was comic books. An adzine is something more specific: a fanzine that devotes a significant portion of its contents to advertisements spotlighting products related to that field of interest. In the case of RBCC, the ads included both ads for other fanzines and lots of ads for back-issue contents from such advertisers as Howard Rogofsky, Robert Bell, and Stan's Magazine Exchange, among others.

Today, when the internet makes almost anything instantly findable and purchaseable for  a sufficiently high investment, it may seem impossible to believe that something like back issue comic books could be hard to find. But remember, this was a time when there was no internet, no eBay, no instantly accessible venue for free listings of available merchandise. Before I got my first issue of RBCC, I had no idea that there were people who sold back issue comic books from the 1940s to the present--and in fact, there were dealers who made a living selling those back issues. If I wanted to find an old comic, I had to try to work out a trade with my friends, scour used-comic-book sections at stores like Coosa Valley Book Shop or Croker's, or  write to Marvel Comics and get a dittoed list of what office copies they had available and hope that the list included the books I was looking for (yes, at that time, it was possible to order comics from Marvel--and I did so quite frequently!).

And then I opened that envelope, flipped through the pages of RBCC #38, and my comic book collecting world was turned upside down.

Pretty much any comic book I wanted (bear in mind that the comics I wanted were primarily books from the late 1950s to the then-present 1965... a period of six or seen years) could be had for the right price. Even better, comic books I had never dreamed I would see--comic books from the Golden Age--could be had for a few dollars each.

It was both liberating and exasperating. Here was a source for all the comics I wanted... but the cost of those comics was beyond my budget. A copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 for $8? Preposterous! A Tales to Astonish #27 for $6? Who could afford to pay the equivalent cost of almost fifty comics for one book?

The articles were interesting, of course, and I read every word and perused every piece of fan art. I was inspired to create my own art, in fact, and to create my own characters (most of whom were derivatives of characters I enjoyed--Marvel gave us Dr. Doom, so I created Doctor Dread; later, they offered Galactus, so I countered with Univus). But it was really those ads that fascinated me.

They also confused me.

Howard Rogofsky, perhaps the highest-priced source for comics in the pages of RBCC, had a habit of routinely listing future issues of ucpoming comics. Why not? He knew he'd get them--and if someone wished to pay fifty cents plus shipping for the issue of Batman that wouldn't be out for two more months, then he'd gladly take the money, hold it, and mail you that issue when it came out. I didn't know that, however; I assumed that if he listed those issues, he actually had them in stock right then (okay, I was naive...). I also learned the hard way that Rogofsky's grading was, to say the least, rather generous. He routinely listed books as VG-F (very good to fine) that would scarcely qualify as good by today's standards--and he didn't seem to consider tape or ink marks as detrimental to condition.

But he seemed to have almost everything, and his books seeemed to sell fast. Each issue of RBCC had an ad from Rogofsky, and each month, many of those rare books would drop off the list. So I started looking at those Golden Age books, trying to find books that I could afford.

Golden Age Captain America? Couldn't afford 'em. All Star Comics? Out of my price range. Even 1950's EC's were too expensive for me.

But Sensation Comics was in my budget. I could get 1945 and 1946 issues of Sensation for $1 and $2 each. Oh, the best they had to offer was Wonder Woman and Wilcat stories, but still--it was a Golden Age Comic!

So every couple of months, I'd save up a few bucks, order a few fill-in Marvel and DC comics--and I'd add an issue of Sensation. (I only fell for the "order a future issue" trick one time, and felt really foolish when I learned that he didn't have the book. Thankfully, he was willing to let me cancel that order and apply the half-dollar to my next order of back issues.)

I felt like I had discovered a secret marketplace. My comics buying habits were about to change, and collecting took on a whole new scope.  I had no idea that those fanzines would soon inspire me to do my own fanzines... and that would, eventually, give birth to a store newsletter that eventually metamorphosed into Comic Shop News...

Eerie Synchronicity

I've known for all of my life that I was related to author (and Charlie Chan creator) Earl Derr Biggers, but I was in my thirties before I discovered that Biggers and I shared the same birthday: August 26th. Now I've discovered more coincidences. There is some dispute over Biggers' year of birth--some sites list it as 1884, some as 1885 (for what it's worth, the family records have indicated 1885 as the correct year). It turns out that he and I suffered our heart attacks on the exact same day of the month as well--and if the year 1885 is the correct year of birth for EDB, then we were both exactly the same age when we suffered our heart attacks. 

(Thankfully, my heart attack ended up being less fatal than his...)

An Eighties Appreciation

It's no secret that I am an avid fan of 1960s music; it's the music of my childhood, the music of my adolescence, the music I grew up with, the first music that I bought. I think the latter is particularly crucial in anyone's music appreciation--the first music that speaks to us so intensely that we're willing to spend our limited allowance funds to own it is the music we're likely to love as long as we live.

However, I've been listening to a lot of 1980s music lately, and I'm about to say something that may surprise many of my friends: as much as I love 1960s music, I am convinced that the 1980s were the nexus of pop music, with more diversity, more energy, more vitality, and more creativity than any other pop music era, including the 1960s.

I credit MTV with a lot of that; when the cable channel launched with the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," they did a lot more than stress visuals as well as music. They also encouraged originality and experimentation. Since MTV of the early 1980s was hungry for videos to fill its airtime, almost any group with a strong sound and a striking look could get MTV airplay. And audiences were hungry to see music videos; watching MTV was a normal part of the weekly entertainment cycle in the 1980s, and people discussed music videos with the same intensity they devoted to hit TV shows, films, and books.

Groups like Scandal and the Motels and Wang Chung and the Stray Cats and Minor Detail and Quarterflash and Big Country would have probably gotten very little if any airplay in the pre-MTV radio-driven music days. However, MTV made room for anyone with a fresh sound and a catchy video, style notwithstanding. Rockabilly, new wave, punk, pop, dance, folk, techno, soul--there was room for all of these styles and many, many more.

I recently transferred several 1980s compilation sets to MP3 to listen to on my iPod, including Priority Records' Rock of the 1980s, Time-Life's Greatest Hits of the 1980s, Capitol's Sedated in the 80s, Rhino's Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 1980s and a few more--and I was amazed that, after transferring more than a thousand songs from a variety of greatest-hits packages, I had only about a 20%-25% duplication of titles. There was so much energetic, catchy music from the era that each label found distinctive songs from the decade that no one else had picked up on.

There are distinctive 1980s sounds--punchy, up-front drums, strong bass lines, swirling synthesizers--that add a lot to the sound of songs from this era, but the improved production values and upgraded recording quality also helped. Even the most minor groups could produce songs with the same production values as the big guys, and multitrack recording had become cheap enough that small groups could easily afford big sounds.

I'm having fun re-experiencing a lot of these songs, many of which I haven't listened to in years. And I've learned that even musicians and groups I didn't care for could capture the feel of an era much more intensely than I had initially realized.

I guess I was lucky enough to experience two remarkable musical decades!

So Long, Seventies

This evening, I watched the final episodes of That 70s Show, after beginning the series almost two months ago. (I only watch episodes of old series while I'm exercising, generally watching one episode in the morning and another in the afternoon, so it takes about a week per season for half-hour sitcoms.)

From the very beginning, I found the shows little elements of 1970s life to be appealing. I continually found little set elements that reflected our own life at the time, from the macrame plant hangers and spider plants to the addition of cable tv to the first VCR. The addition of so many spot-on decade-appropriate references made the series particularly engaging for me.

The kids themselves--well, they could have been students of mine. I started teaching high school in 1975, so I taught a senior class that graduated the same year as the Point Place kids. I have fond memories of my students of those years--Steve Callaway and Debbie Marsh and Bill Schroeder and Scott Prince and Leanna Leithauser and Edith Anderson and Jodi Crim and so many others who shared one character trait or another with Hyde, Eric, Donna, Fez, Jackie, and Kelso.  So I found myself both empathizing with the characters as their experiences reflected my own, and viewing their experiences through the eyes of one who saw real-world high school students come of age at the same time.

The show's humor works so well for me because it blends timely cultural references, ensemble-cast interaction, cleverly written dialogue, endearing characters, and just enough physical slapstick to season the series without overwhelming it.  None of the other elements would have mattered were it not for the endearing characters, however; for a show to succeed (in my eyes, at least), I have to like the focal characters.  I not only liked Eric and Donna in particular, I actually cared about them and what happened to them. That's a relative rarity for television. I like the cast of Seinfeld and How I Met Your Mother and The Middle and Rules of Engagement and 30 Rock, but I don't care about them; I don't find myself wondering at the end of an episode what might happen to them next, or how their lives might be made better or worse by what happened to them in that episode. By the end of Seinfeld or Malcolm in the Middle, I was ready for them to move on.  At the end of That 70s Show, I actually hoped that the lives of these fictional characters would continue in the way that I felt that it should.

Friends was the last sitcom whose characters made me care about them. And like Friends, I found myself thinking that I'd like to know if life continued to treat these characters well... if they found happiness, if their lives became what they hoped they would be, if they remained friends for years more. That, to me, is the sign of a well-crafted work of fiction; the characters, born from the imaginations of the writers, become real enough that the audience truly wants to think that their lives continued beyond the end of the fictional work.

If there were any one element of That 70s Show that I didn't like, it was the strong emphasis on marijuana use. I went through the 70s (and in fact, through my entire life) without using marijuana or other illegal drugs, and I sort of resented the implication that drug use was such an inherent part of the decade that every person who came of age during that decade just naturally used the drugs, regardless of gender or background or social or religious standing. However, I like the characters enough that I can empathize with them in spite of the drug use--and when you consider my personal anti-drug militancy, that's quite an accomplishment on the part of the writers.

The last season--most of which struggled along without Topher Grace (who left at the end of season 7) and Ashton Kutcher (who left a few episdoes into season 8)--was weak, to be sure. The plots weren't awful, by any means, but the interpersonal chemistry was missing. Donna, Hyde, Jackie, and Fez remained interesting, but not interesting enough; the disgruntled alienation of Hyde needed the reckless exuberance of Kelso to balance it, and the serious strength of Donna relied on the mercurial, ineffectual whimsy of Eric to give it direction. The addition of new characters like Randy and Sam was detrimental, because it forced the ensemble cast to act out of character in order to make room for the newcomers.

The series ended on a high note with the return of both Kelso and Eric to Point Place on New Years Eve, 1979. That 70s Show and those 70s came to an end at the same time, and with just enough optimism for the future that I can believe that Eric and Donna finally found happiness with one another. If you think otherwise, don't tell me--I see the entire show as building to the point where they not only accept the intertwined nature of their lives (they did that early on, in spite of several stumbles), but that they embrace it and walk into their futures together as a couple. Life gives us far too many missed opportunities; for me, this show, from the very beginning, was the story of a love's fits and starts as it searched for its true course.

Sure, it's a lot of burden to put on a sitcom.  The fact that it stayed the course and delivered an ending that these characters deserved proves that the series and its writers were up to the challenge.

Re-Kindling My Interest

I really don't think I'm the right customer for a Kindle.

Oh, I have one--Amazon literally made me one of those offers I can't refuse.

The problem is, I absolutely love books.

Certainly, a Kindle allows me to enjoy the text of a book--but no matter how I try, I can't think of it as a book. It is, at best, akin to a galley proof, a review copy. Problem is, every time I got a galley proof of a book that I really liked, I had to procure a copy of the book as well.

I thought, "Well, I can use the Kindle to enjoy classic literature." There are a lot of books now in public domain that I can download through the Kindle.

Didn't help. Whenever I really enjoy one of those classics, I find myself tracking down a handsome copy of the book to add to my library.

So I've finally come to the realization that a Kindle is actually the electronic equivalent of one of those Brodart library book jackets (you know, the clear plastic sleeves that protect dust jackets from smears, smudges, tears, and wear).  It's a great way for me to read a book without damaging my physical copy.

Okay, I know that's not the plan they had in mind... but as long as I think of it that way, I can enjoy a Kindle a lot more. And you know, every now and then I find a book that I don't like that much, so I don't have to buy a copy of it.

But that's far less common than I would have hoped...

Flaky Weather

This year, the weather forecasters have been particularly focused on the "mention every possibility and hope one of 'em is right" school of prognostication. Last weekend, they were saying that we had a chance of 1/2" to 1" of snow on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. As the week progressed, the same forecasters backpedaled, reducing the totals to 1/10" to 1/4" of snow. This afternoon, Atlanta's meteorological Cassandra, Glen Burns, backpedaled even further, claiming that the snow was turning into a light rain event instead, with virtually no snow predicted for metro Atlanta.

Well, the snow began at about 10pm, and as of right now, we have about 1/4" to 1/2" of snow on the deck, with the yard lightly covered in snow as well (it's too warm for it to stick to the road, thankfully). So you can be sure that come tomorrow morning, Glen and crew will tout the fact that they had predicted this a week ago... ignoring the fact that they modified that prediction to the point of total inaccuracy by this afternoon.

It's sort of like giving a darts player a hundred darts, then letting him paint the target where he wishes after he's thrown all the darts. That's one way to ensure that one of 'em hits the bullseye...

So Long, FedEx Ex-Warehouse

This was the first week that Diamond Comics Distributors sent my freight shipment to the new FedEx Freight hub in Smyrna, GA (formerly a National Freight hub, I believe, prior to the merger of the two). Prior to that, we've been driving 45 miles one-way to the South Atlanta hub in Conley, GA. We didn't ask to make the change, and in fact were willing to keep on driving to Conley in a while, but as someone at Diamond explained to us, "It's like having the USPS open a new post office in your neighborhood. That's your post office now; you don't get to keep getting your mail delivered from the old post office."

I had wonderful experiences with the Conley warehouse and the wonderful crew who worked there--Tommy, Chris, Don, Barry, and the rest of the crew there always went out of their way to give us unprecedented service, and I really appreciated them. But now that the switch has been made, I have to admit that there's something good about an 18 mile drive that never takes me out of Cobb County (where my store is located). I figure it's going to save me more than 5000 miles a year, as well as saving me at least an hour on the road each week.

The folks at the Smyrna hub were very friendly and helpful today, and I think the transition is going to be a smooth one. It's going to take a little getting used to, though!

I'm an Equus-trian

I forgot to mention after my post on 12/28 that Ed Voyles Hyundai came back with a very aggressive offer, made up for the shortcomings of that initial experience, and ultimately made the Equus irresistible.

The problems with the vehicle's shortcomings still exist, of course--but I've become all too aware that there is no perfect vehicle for me. I've driven a BMW, a Mercedes, an Infiniti, a Lexus, an Acura, a Cadillac, a Lincoln, an Audi, a Volvo, a Jaguar, a Range Rover, a Bentley (okay, I never even for a moment considered buying it, but they were willing to let me drive it, so why not?...), and a Porsche as well as the Equus, and there isn't a single one of them that doesn't have problems and shortcomings. Let me pick and choose features from each and I could build the perfect car... but that's impossible, so I have to determine the best combination of features, performance, comfort, and price.

The Equus ultimately won out. At the price they were originally asking, the shortcomings made it an unacceptable vehicle--but at the revised price, complete with a full ten-year extended warranty, the positives outweighed the negatives. So I now have a black-on-black Equus Ultimate, and we've thoroughly enjoyed it so far. Between this car and the Acura MDX, I think I have the best combination of price/features/performance/comfort available.