The Man of Steel Stands Tall Against the Klan

The graphic novel, Superman Smashes the Klan (DC, May 12, 2020) was actually inspired by the 1940s Superman radio serial Clan of the Fiery Cross. Beginning in 1940 New York City's WOR radio station began broadcasting The Adventures of Superman. The radio program was based on the best-selling character from creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. While the serial itself originally aired from 1940 to 1951. In 1946 the serial ran a storyline entitled The Clan of the Fiery Cross, which was a thinly veiled takedown of the Ku Klux Klan. As could be expected, this storyline elicited cries from listeners that it caused Superman to become too political. However, instead of detracting from Superman’s popularity, the serial proved to be a so successful, that it actually helped in reducing the Klan’s real life recruitment efforts.

In 2019, New York Times bestselling author, Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Boxers and Saints, The Terrifics, New Super-Man) along with artist Gurihiru (Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Unstoppable Wasp) began a personal retelling in comicbook form, a serialized version of that story. Then in 2020, the three-issue limited series was collected into a 240, square-bound format and re-issued, along with the essay Superman and Me by Yang.

This Superman story takes place in 1946 and centers around teenage siblings, Roberta and Tommy Lee as well as their parents who have recently moved from Chinatown to the center of Metropolis, home to Superman. Tommy, who is older, is the more outgoing of the pair, quickly makes friends in the neighborhood, while Roberta, who is shy, longs for home. The story opens up with Superman facing off against Atom Man, a German soldier that is by designed by Nazi science but powered by Kryptonite. While Superman manages to take him out, the Kryptonite makes him woozy until Inspector Henderson (a Black man, and yes, this becomes important later in the story) takes both it and Atom Man away. As it turns out, both Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are also there to witness the fight.

Upon moving into town, Mr. Lee takes a job as a scientist in the Metropolis Center while Tommy hooks up with the local youth baseball team. Unfortunately, by joining the team he inadvertently shows up the team’s star pitcher, Chuck who heads home to his Uncle Matt. As it turns out Uncle Matt, is not only something of a racist, but a member of the Clan of the Fiery Cross. Meanwhile, Clark Kent is having some odd visions as a result of being exposed to the Kryptonite (even though he doesn’t yet realize it). Clark is also seeing a pair of weirdly alien creatures (a distorted view of his Kryptonian parents). Over at the Lee’s their house is attacked by several members of the Clan of the Fiery Cross, who burn a cross on their lawn. Fortunately, the police arrived in time to break things up. Unfortunately, there are other, far more deadly things afoot as the Clan plans on wrecking even more havoc in Metropolis. 

One of the interesting aspects of this story is that, as it takes place in the past, this version of Krypton’s Last Son is a bit different than the version from the character we are used to seeing. This Superman can’t yet fly but can "run faster than a locomotive" and “Leap tall buildings in a single bound”. So for all intents and purposes he is very much the Superman of the 1940s, mostly unaware of his true Kryptonian origins, and not quite as strong as we know him to be in this era. Needless to say, other things are different, Inspector Henderson (who didn’t appear until the Superman TV show in the ‘50s running from ’52 to ’58). Still, he’s enough like the Superman we now to successfully carry the book.

To return to the story, the members of the Clan of the Burning Cross return to the Lee’s to do more damage, kidnap Tommy, and plant a bomb and all sorts of other nasty mischief. Fortunately, Superman, the Lee children, Jimmy and Lois are around to help out, bringing the story to a happy, and successful conclusion. There is also a sub-plot involving Mr. White as well as Inspector Henderson and Chuck’s nasty Uncle who feels it necessary to unload quite a bit of “white purity” with an extra helping of racial hate directed at the Inspector (told you that his skin color was going to come into play).

As stated at the beginning of this article, Gene Yang rounds out this wonderful graphic novel with a very in-depth, historical essay about not only his own personal history with the Man of Steel, but on his history of growing up as a Chinese-American on the West Coast intermingled with what racism was like for both Blacks in the South an how that mirrored some of what he and other Asians dealt with on the West Coast. He compared and contrasted how the hatred and exclusion from how “regular” Americans were treated. Offering up some very enlightening insights to what being non-White in this country is seen by those who aren’t.

All-in-all, the stories of Superman Smashes the Klan, the Lees, Gene Yang, other non-whites in America, young Tommy and his hateful racist uncle, as well as Superman himself all spin together into a similar tale, one that should provide a bond for all of us to live together in a land where we are all immigrants, descendants of immigrants or slaves, or indigenous peoples. I know when I was growing up we were taught that this country is a melting pot where all races and peoples mixed together. Unfortunately, it is sad to learn that some folks never bothered learning that lesson. Hopefully, with more books like this one, perhaps others will come to learn this as well.

Interestingly enough, this 2020 graphic novel hits on several points also made by James Gunn's 2025 Superman film, including immigration, inclusion, and (oddly enough, a bit of my own mantra, that of Power and responsibility), making this a much more powerful, and importantly unifying message across the DCU. 

 

 

 

This Week in Comics

I’ve been reading comics since 1961. In the late ‘70’s I discovered fandom when some a fellow fan named Mark Earnst from New Hampshire reached out to me and asked me to join his amateur Publishing Alliance (APA) which I did, that APA became known as Phoenix. In 1981, I sold my first professional article, The Ditko Days, to Amazing Heroes; marking me the first person from Phoenix to go pro. By 1996 when the market crashed, I became the most prolific journalist in the field of comics, having contributed to nearly ever comic fanzine (as well as several of the major and minor comic publishers) that were being published at the time.

After the crash which took out virtually all of the fanzines, I switched over to the web, publishing reviews and articles to a number of websites. In the nearly 30 years since then, I’ve “outlived” half a dozen or so sites that have gone dark (one of which just announced this week that it is shuttering early in 2026), and yet I still continue to write about comics, films, TV, and other things which catch my fancy (including writing and publishing my own comics and books).

Yes, I love comics.

This past week I picked up some comics that I want to talk about. Topping off my list is the Marvel/DC Deadpool Batman team-up. Normally I rather enjoy cross-company team-ups, and over the years have collected quite a number of them, and, as a rule, have enjoyed them. Unfortunately, Deadpool/Batman isn’t one of them. While I understand why the two companied chose both characters for a team-up, (The purpose of the book is sales, so put two of the most popular/recognizable characters together for the biggest bang for your buck), still, they couldn’t be two more mismatched characters if they tried. (Batman/Moon Knight, Batman/Daredevil would be more evenly matched and/or logical pairings.)

To be sure, the story does sort of balance out as the Joker is the villain of the piece, thus clashing Joker’s brand of crazy up against Deadpool’s, unfortunately, Deadpool’s chaotic crazy simply doesn’t play well against Batman’s stoicism. (At this point in this essay, I feel it necessary to point out that while I do so enjoy Ryan Reynolds depiction of the Merc with a Mouth, I find the comicbook version not only excessively tedious, but endlessly overused.)

The story has Deadpool dropped into Batman’s Gotham as a hitman for hire tagged to take out the Dark Knight by none other than the Joker himself, who has concocted yet another scheme to kill hundreds of citizens of the city. As can be expected, even as the plan goes predictably array all three of the main characters seem horribly mismatched, as they are pretzeled into the mash-up required to make the story work. So, yeah, not my favorite team-up.

Fortunately, while the Batman/Deadpool story was the lead story, there were other team-ups in the book. Next up is a Captain America/Wonder Woman tale (which makes more sense as a team-up), Still, while this pairing makes more sense as both characters have strong patriotic themes running through their histories, the story itself has them crossing paths throughout their respective histories, as they bounce around through time periods, from WWII to the present day and into a far-flung future. It has them confronting Hitler in the bunker, fighting Galactus, the death of Supergirl during the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, opposing Maxwell Lord, and chilling on the JLA Satellite.

There is also a story teaming Krypto and Jeff the Shark that is, well, inexplicably whatever.  Following that is a teaming of Daredevil and Green Arrow (again, another unusual pairing, Green Arrow and Hawkeye would have been much better for obvious reasons, especially as this is not the lead talk, but four stories back). Then comes a two-page Rocket Racoon and Green Lantern short, followed by a three page Frank Miller Wolverine/Batman clash. The issue is rounded out by another three-pager staring Logo (and no, I have no idea who this is, save that it appears to be a mash-up of Lobo and Wolverine), who trashes an Iron Man stand-in, and chats with a substitute Thanos, in a story that make less sense than any of the others.

Finally, in a move that defies explanation, there is an ad in the book that is for the very book itself. The only answer we can consider as passingly rational is that the ad was placed in all comics produced that month, and wound up in the title it was pimping, by accident (because no one was pruning the ads).

I also picked a facsimile reprint edition of Batman #47 (1948) because I occasionally enjoy checking out Golden Age comics. As to why I do this, is often beyond me when I actually read the Golden Age stories. Even as a teen when I first started reading reprints of those Golden Age tales I’m always surprised that—given the level of storytelling itself—how comics manages to survive to even get to the Silver Age. Sorry kids, most to the stories from that era that I’ve read are, quite honestly, barely readable (a sentiment I’ve had confirmed by other comic aficionados (pros and fans alike).

And finally, I received two comicbook Kickstarter packages this past week, First a grouping of 10 books from G-Man Comics as well as a reprint collection from Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant (which I haven’t read as of yet but am excited to read both). I’ve previously read and reviewed two groups of G-Man Kickstarter comics, and while it’s been a while since I read any Heavy Metal comic mags, I’m familiar enough with what to expect from this and the other issues I’ve received (and yet still have yet to read).

Well, given that this is Thanksgiving weekend I’m sure that I’ll have plenty of time to red my ay through those comics.

50 Ways to Completely Lose Your Mind

How to Completely Lose Your Mind is a graphic novel memoir of an indie band’s attempt to break a Guinness World Record of playing 50 gigs in each of the 50 U.S. states in 50 days (yes, this is a real record). Currently, the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to play a concert in each of the 50 U.S. states is 49 days, which was first set by Donavon Frankenreiter and Devon Allman in September 2023. They broke the previous record of 50 days, which was set by Adam Brodsky later in in 2003. 

 What we have here with this entertaining graphic novel is neither of those stories, but rather the Indie Band, Pocket Vinyl’s record-breaking music tour. Unfortunately, Pocket Vinyl’s tour didn’t quite make it into the Guinness Book of World Record, as they didn’t actually follow the qualifying rules which include the following:

Key rules and criteria

·         50 distinct concerts: A separate concert must be played in each of the 50 U.S. states

·         Fastest time: The goal is to complete all 50 concerts in the shortest possible timeframe

·         Measurable and verifiable: The record attempt must be measurable, and all performances must be verifiable by Guinness World Records

·         Open to challenge: The record must be breakable, meaning it is open to new attempts by others

·         No specific state order required: 

According to the graphic novel about their epic tour, while Eric Stevenson and Elizabeth Jancewicz—the husband and wife team that have been playing as Pocket Vinyl froe a decade—determine to make this cross-country road trip and then recount their hilariously humorous, and touchingly heartfelt account of their across the USA tour, while the couple attempt to (unofficially) break the world record for playing a musical gig in every state of the union.

It is their stated intention to create their own world record music tour by playing gigs in 50 States in 45 Days. Together, the couple perform as the band Pocket Vinyl, where Eric slams on the piano and sings while Elizabeth creates a large oil painting on stage. In these artists’ graphic novel, it is fun to watch as they take on their biggest challenge yet, touring the whole nation in just 45 days, while they attempt to break the record for the fastest time a band has played in all 50 U.S. states.

Needless to say, even after Eric and Elizabeth realize that actually complying with the Guinness rules would be impossibly costly and logistically beyond their means. Still, instead of simply giving up, they determine that they will make the trip anyway and begin their planning.

In doing so, what we as readers come away with is this delightful graphic novel is a wild road trip of performance highs, self-doubt lows, and determination. As co-author Elizabeth Janceqicz says, “I knew that embarking on such a monstrous adventure would provide me with stories to tell, but I hadn’t realized how much those stories would change me...In retrospect, we learned so much: about how our art helps people, how interconnected we all are, and how easily our minds can descend into mental illness without us even realizing it’s happening.”

The book starts out with a flash forward sequence of Eric and Elizabeth where Eric is beyond distraught as he realizes that he messed up and ruined everything (or so he believes). From this point, we return to the very beginning of the tale, when Eric proposes the trip to Elizabeth, and the planning begins, and Eric goes about book. Once the plan is set, they kick it off and head out onto the road.

Before they actually head out, they take us through several steps of their planning phase, including getting the gigs booked—occasionally booking back-to-back gigs just across state lines so that they can stack up multiple gigs in a single day so as to speed up their travels—planning out the route they plan on taking, determine what to clothing, food, and supplies to pack in their car. All the things that they will need for their trip.

As they are based in Connecticut, they plan their early gigs throughout New England. Then traveling through the Mid-Atlantic states, the South, Midwest, Southwest, up the West Coast, winding up In Alaska and then Hawaii. Along the way they run into old friends, new fans, and folks who have been following their journey online. As can be expected, here are ups and downs on their epic journey (including the supposed screw-up from the start of the story—revealing what it is, and what happens will ruin the story).

We personally discovered this book as a freebie giveaway on 2025’s FCBD. The book was apparently a misprint that was issues with a note affixed to the cover, and a Post-it on the inside cover, as well as a corrected blow-in page. We found the story refreshing, engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable, and we heartily suggest that all’y’all go out and secure a copy of your own.

 

 

Howling at the moon with Cement

There’s this old joke that I very much love. Two people are talking, the first person asks “What Howls at the moon and has cement in it?”

The second person responds, “I don’t know.”

The first person responds, “A wolf.”

This causes the second person to ask, “What about the cement?”

To which the first person says, “Oh, I just put that in to make it hard.”

 Yeah, I know, a total Dad Joke. Which I get to tell because I’m not only a dad, but a grandad. (To be sure I did also tell the joke prior to actually being a dad.) But I digress.

Some 19 years ago I was at home when I was called by a publisher and tasked with developing an eight-page comic story that frightened me. I told the caller that I was the wrong guy for the assignment, as I didn’t like horror, hadn’t written anything in a year, and hadn’t written fiction in over 10 years. The publisher insisted that I was the guy he wanted. Again, I begged off, stating that I had to go pick up my then 15-year-old son at his job. I hung up and went to pick up my son and returned home.

By the time I returned home, less than an hour later, I called the publisher back and pitched him the story of Wülf Girls—two under-aged sisters who were werewülves that hunted pedophiles. Needless to say, he loved it. So, I went ahead and wrote it. It took me two weeks—a week to write the first six pages and a full second week to write the last two, because, frankly, it was that gruesome, even for me.

Well, the issue came out and when my father read it, he nearly stopped talking to me because of the content. I had to convince him that not only was it just a story, but I had turned the sisters from prey into predators. Once the comic was published, we shopped it at a horror convention in New Jersey, while there I met Melvin Ylagan, the cover artist, and he loved the story and wanted to know what the next story was. I told him there was no next story, because you now knew the punchline of the story. Melvin wouldn’t let up, pointing out that the Girlz were 150 years old so there had to be other stories.

That was the spark that kicked off the rest of what was to come. I went on to write a second and third chapter (as well as two short vignettes, as well as a prose story where the Girlz co-stared with another creator’s character, plus as a comic story for a different publisher where they had a cameo). Between the time of the publication of the second and while waiting patiently for the the original publisher to print the third chapter of the Wülf Girlz saga (2006-2008), I busied myself with writing a prose story about their training into the werewülf community. That story became the prose novella Taste the Moon (now available through Dark Fire Press, yet another publisher). During that time while I was working at a job, I used my coffee and lunch breaks to write two long texts on my (semi-smart) phone that I later downloaded to my computer, stitched together, and edited to become the novella.

In 2019, after having split from the original publisher of Wülf Girlz (the third chapter of which still unpublished), I reconnected with my friend J.M. DeSantis and asked if he was interested in continuing the saga. J.M. agreed, and he and I began our collaborative efforts to do just that. This process involved me getting the three chapters and two vignettes colored, laying out and formatting the novella, getting contracts written, updated, and signed, as well as agreeing to a business plan on how Dark Fire would operate, and ultimately bringing the books to get published.

All of which was complicated by COVID, J.M. and my sometimes conflicting, and often erratic schedules, as well as other complexities of living in the world. Needless to say, against many odds we have finally done it, and both The Wülf Girlz comicbook, and the Taste the Moon novella are now in print and available across multiple platforms, including, but not limited to Dark Fire Press, IndyPlanet, GlobalComix, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Net1World, as well as, of course direct from me at shows.

One of the more important parts of the story that I skipped over, is that, long before I had conceived of the Girlz, I had met and interviewed Steve Bissette in my role as a journalist working for Amazing Heroes. After I had written the first couple of stories and had finished writing the novella I reached out to Steve and asked him if he’d pen a forward to the book, and he graciously agreed. Sadly, it has taken some 17 years to bring the novella to print, and for his part, Steve has patiently waited (thanks Steve).

In the background for all of this, I’ve written two other (unpublished) Wülf Girlz scripts, a short story, and the plots to several other scripts. Currently I’m writing a follow-up novella (yes, on my now Smart Phone), and I’m looking for an artist to illustrate their further adventures. I’ve also written a short prose story of another female wülf character as well as a 500-word flash fiction story involving a female wülf character (neither of whom are Hope or Grace).

What started as a one-off challenge has turned into an on-going collection of stories featuring female wülf characters, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier.

That time Napoleon conquered the stars.

Imagine an alternative timeline where Napoleon not only conquers not only Europe, but all of Earth and then reaches out into the stars to extend his imperial realm throughout all of the galaxy! Napoleon was a polarizing character in history, to say the least. As with so many figures in history, he was a mix of positives and negatives.

On the one hand he was hailed as a great commander and leader, yet, on the other hand, he was also a ruthless raider of antiquities and a looter of artwork. During his campaigns in Egypt, he discovered the Rosetta Stone, used to unlock the ancient Egyptian language, but then subsequently took much of what he discovered back to France with him. Throughout his military career he won over 50 battles and ruled more than 44 million people in Europe and overseas colonies.

Now imagine if this shrewd and unrelenting emperor-general had access to modern-day technology and took his conquering ways across the solar system to other inhabited planets so that Napoleon could Conquer all of Space itself!

Napoleon’s Starship is a hardbound, sci-fi graphic novel published by Wayward Raven. The story is told through the eyes of the main character, Gavroche, a young revolutionist and artist. On Earth, she joined the protests against Napoleon’s cruel rule. No longer being able to stand his tyranny, Gavroche stows away on Napoleon’s Starship, determined to assassinate him.

Napoleon’s Starship is told through the eyes of Gavroche, a young revolutionist and artist. On Earth, she joined the protests against Napoleon’s cruel rule. No longer being able to stand his tyranny, Gavroche stows away on Napoleon’s Starship, determined to assassinate him.

When she is caught by Napoleon’s troops, Napoleon’s Master of Artistic Propaganda attempts to force her to use her art for propaganda. Gavroche resists, eventually meeting the denizens of this new planet. A kinship is formed with these creatures that speak through scent and Gavroche devises a desperate plan to overthrow the galactic emperor!

Katherine Blakeney the creator of this amazing book is an artist, writer, animator, archaeologist and pilot. Her stop-motion animated short films have been screened at numerous international film festivals and have won several awards. Katherine’s paintings have been exhibited at Cork Gallery in Lincoln Center. Every summer she works in ancient Egyptian tombs, uncovering the secrets of Ancient Egyptian craftsmanship.

The story of Napoleon’s Starship directly draws upon Katherine’s experience as an archeologist and what she has seen on her digs in Egypt. She is very passionate about preserving our ancient history and art while still bringing it to the people. Art isn’t just something for the privileged,

Four (no, wait, five) new books of mine

I’ve been a writer all my life. It was in 1978 that I went pro. I started working at a local radio station as a copywriter. Over the next few years, I worked at a couple of different stations in Conn. Then, in 1981 I got my first print article published (Ditko Days, Amazing Heroes #5). From there I went on to spend the next nearly 20 or so years writing for virtually every comic magazine being published. In addition to all that I was also penning marketing and PR material for most of the major (and several mid-level) comicbook companies (Marvel, DC, Valient, Dark Horse, Extreme, others).

In ’85 I took over the writing the writing of a comic strip (Video Victor) in Videogaming Illustrated, the magazine for which I was then the managing editor. In ‘86 I was able to convince Deni Lobert (Renegade Press) to publish a comic concept of mine (Agent Unknown). In 2011 I began writing short, illustrated stories for several of Jim Main’s Main Enterprises publications. Between 2011 and 2021 I wrote 17 stories. Recently I gathered those stories together and compiled them into a massive omnibus, which is now available on Amazon. The book is called Funnybook City Omnibus: Jump the Shark Issue. The cover was done by my friend Scott Barnett. 

Also available on Amazon is Writers Unite! Dimensions of Superheroes, a prose superhero anthology that I not only designed and assembled, but where I had three short stories and wrote the forward. The book has 14 writers (including me, but more importantly, Gary Cohn, Paul Kupperberg (both of whom worked for DC and other comic companies) and William Patrick Murray, who not only writes amazing prose novels, but created Squirrel Girl for Marvel) telling 20 stories about a myriad number of superheroes, not all of them the kind you read in those funnybooks, wrapped in colorful spandex, and looking all pretty for the masses. These heroes come from all walks of life, and all have strange and unusual powers. It’s well worth the read, if you know what I mean.

Another book I recently assembled is Wings of Man, a comic that combines a number of stories I wrote about flying. Those stories include one about Gustave Whitehead, a German immigrant who flew two years before the Wright brothers, and lived in my hometown of Fairfield CT. I was originally told Gustave’s story by my high school science teacher. At the time, I was in high school and said that Gustave’s story would make a good comicbook. Then it took me 35 years to make it happen. This story was followed by me penning more stories about flight (some of them peripherally involving references to Gustave).

Earlier this year I learned about Ditko Con, which takes place in Johnstown, PA. I’ve been a fan of Steve’s work since I first saw it in Amazing Fantasy #15. Will was already attending the con, and I asked him to introduce me to the showrunner, whereupon I got myself invited. To prepare for the event, I took the first two articles I wrote for publication and combined them into a Spidey-mag. Those articles (from way back in ’81 & ’82) were about Steve Ditko’s and John Romita, Sr.’s runs on Amazing Spider-Man. (John’s article appeared in The FantaCo Chronicles, and it included a checklist to the first 120 issues of the comic, as well as all of the related Spidey titles being published at the time. Then for good measure I tossed in a review I wrote about a Ditko Kickstarter that he did with Robin Snyder. I’m hoping to sell a few copies of this mag at the con.

All of those books were produced over the past couple of months. Oh, and not to leave anything out, I also wrote a 500-word flash fiction story for Weird Fiction Quarterly. The writing prompt for this issue was The King in Yellow an H.P. Lovecraft-adjacent story. So I now have five new books to sell at shows.

Welcome to my funnybook column.

 

Stories That Were Never Told That We Wish We Had Read

Gary Cohn and his longtime friend and writing partner, Dan Mishkin, entered the comicbook industry together in 1980 following correspondence with Jack C. Harris, an editor over at DC Comics. That first work—drawn by Steve Ditko—was the three-page short story On the Day of His Return" which appeared in Time Warp #3 (Feb.–March). This initial sale was soon followed by the team creating Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld with artist Ernie Colón then going on (with Paris Cullins) to create Blue Devil. Cohn and artist Ron Randall co-created the Barren Earth.

From there Cohn has gone on to write for several other comicbook companies, including Archie, Crusade, Marvel, Mattel, and Renegade Press. He also wrote several stories for William Tucci's Crusade Comics including an intercompany crossover between Crusade's Shi and Marvel Comics' Daredevil. Cohn also wrote three Hardy Boys and two Nancy Drew novels. After a while, Cohn left comics and became a teacher at the Information Technology High School in Long Island City, retiring in 2017.

Needless to say, just knowing what Gary did over the years as a comicbook writer, isn’t to know all of it, just recently he published a comicbook-sized “memoir” of work he pitch, but for one reason or another never wound up in publication. The book, The Will-Be’s that Weren’t is nothing short of an amazing look back into things that Gary had pitched to various publishers but were never published, even though (now that we’ve read this book) we wish that they had been.

This book is a collection of at least three projects that Gary pitched that got through various stages of production, from proposal, to outline, to script, to pencils, to inks, to lettered pages. Behind each and every project, Gary provides a backstory the names of his collaborators, as well as sketchy details about what company and editor passed on the project (all names have been altered to protect those that were involved). The three projects are referred to as El Demon, Hellrazers, and Bete Noire.

First up is El Demon. As Gary tells the talk, back when he was writing for Big Corporate Comics (which he refers to as BC—draw your own conclusions as to whom it really was). Gary pointed out that during those days there were essentially two games in town, BC and Phenomenal Comics about which he pitched story ideas. From there, Gary went on to obliquely describe a couple of BC characters before launching into his description of El Demon, whom he described as a Zorro copy with a supernatural gimmick.

To Phenomenal, he pitched an idea about their ghostly western character, “Weird Rider”, (again not the real name), that had been updated from riding a horse to a motorcycle. Unfortunately, his take on “Weird Rider” didn’t fly, so he revamped it into his El Demon concept and took it back to BC. This is one story that went from a pitch to a proposal, to an illustrated story, but that’s where it unfortunately ended, as the story was never published. Fortunately for us, Gry still had all of the various stages of this process which he reprinted in this tome with truly amazing art by Ron Randall.

Next up is Hellrazers, which was a pitch to add to Phenomenal’s futuristic 2222universe. According to Gary, the Hellrazers was based off a concept he had a decade earlier called The Others. Calling once again upon Randall, Gary pitched his revised concept to a Phenomenal editor (Bobby M). Once again, it unfortunately went nowhere (Gary doesn’t remember if the title was canceled, or the entire 2222 universe was scrapped), but a 20-page story was mostly fully illustrated, which he reprints without the dialogue which was apparently lost somewhere along the way.

Gary did include his proposal for The Others, which was about a group of children who were taken from their homes in 1916 by aliens and taken off planet, only to be returned some 70 years later each child (who were handicapped when taken) have become enhanced by the aliens, and this group of kids were to be turned into a superteam.

Finally, we come to The Dark Man, A.K.A. Blackheart, A.K.A. Blackheart in Nightown, A.K.A. Bete Noire (The Dark Beast). Here Gary suggested to Dan Mishkin that they develop a Batman-like character called The Dark Man. Unfortunately, it went nowhere, but a decade later, Gary developed a new wrinkle to the character, where he lived in an alternate 1890, where vampires had come over on the Mayflower, and now the New World was populated by a hoard of vampires.

Gary cast Bete Noire as a mysterious creature of the night, very much in the mold of Batman who is pursuing a serial killer with a vampire modus operandi, leaving his victims bloodless. While pursuing the killer, somehow Bete Noire finds himself transported to an alternate dimension where “his” city is now a Victorian nightmare that is controlled by vampires. With no way back Bete Noire must now do what he can to rid the city of its nightmarish curse. This pitch also comes with art by Ron Randall.

Each of the above pitches are wonderfully entertaining not just from the concept of the pitch themselves, but in the way that we get to see the entire process, from idea, to pitch, to plot, to script, to art. Very rarely do we get to see the entire process of how an idea comes about, and being ale to see these older ideas of Gary’s is a real thrill. We know that Gary produces a small batch of these comics, hopefully, when he runs out he will either reprint them, or create another book, with other concepts of his. We can only hope.