Don’t fight. Agreeable Man is here!

So, this past Sunday (4/16/26) I attended my first Cod Con which took place in Hyannis, MA (yes, that’s out on the cape). It was not only my first Cape Cod comic con, but it was my first time back on the cape in some 25 years. I had a great time at the show, meeting up with some old friends (Len Mihlalovich, Ian Chase Nichols, as well as Colin Devonshire—whom I never actually met, but have been backing and promoting his way-cool Kickstarter, By the Time I Get to Dallas).

Before I get too far into this post, let me say that I had a most amazing time at the show, and hope to be back again next year.

Well, the reason for this post is that while at the show, I became aware of a couple of young lads who not only created their own comicbook, but actually produced it, and printed up a few copies which they were selling at the show. The comic’s title is The Amazing Feats of the Agreeable Man. I was so impressed with the comic, that I bought a copy, and man-o-man, was it a fun read.

The comic itself was nine pages long, plus a cover. It was printed on 8½ x 11 white photocopy paper, printed double sided in black and white with the pages stapled together. The comic came with a cover price of $2.00 but was selling at the show for $10.00, which I happily paid. I believe that the boys had around a dozen copies, which they completely sold out of long before the end of the show.

The comic had a visually engaging layout (indicating that these kids clearly had read their fair share of comics before sitting down to create this one). Both the drawing and the lettering are crud, but in an entertaining, kid sort of way, which by no means detracts from the book but, in fact, adds to its charm.

The story starts out with an explosion, a car crash, and a mugging, all before we are introduced to Agreeable Man, who comes swooping into the story on page three. From there we meet a gang of well-armed thugs, followed by Agreeable Man crash-landing into his fortress of solitude, the Agreeable tower. This is followed by a short origin story for our hero. Next up is some random ultraviolence, the arrival on the scene by Agreeable Man, and—on the final page—the arrival of a very large baby-faced individual carrying a large sledgehammer and a long gun, with a “To be continued” caption at the bottom of the page.

Again, the story is entertainingly engaging, and we hope that the boys who created this continue creating comics, and that their skill in production (and production) improves as they continue to do so. Personally, I remember my older brother and I drawing stick-figure comic strips when we were around that age. While Ron grew out of comics I never did, and—as it turns out—his younger son is not only a comics fan, but so is Ron’s grandson. So I guess some of that love comics was passed down. 

Taboo Dancing with the Dead Or Taboo You

You’re home, all alone. It’s midnight—the proverbial witching hour when all the beasties and ghoulies of the night come forth and prowl (This, however, is the 20^th century; we know that there are no such things as vampires, werewolves, and goblins.  

Yet what was that creaking sound upstairs? That tapping at the window, is it1 branch blowing gently in the wind. or something more sinister’! Yes, perhaps all the “monsters” are gone, but in this hi-tech, post-nuclear, pre-apocalypse age, there is a new set of terrors to hound us and keep us awake at night.

The. media bombard us with the new lunatic fringe. Seemingly harmless neighbors that go ‘round the bend at the slightest provocation. Richard Speck slashes 10 nurses in Chicago; a young man climbs to the top of a tower in Texas and guns down innocent bystanders; a patron with an automatic weapon, snaps in a Burger King; a disgrun tled Postal Worker expresses his displeasure with the help of a handgun. And always the friends and neighbors appear on TV the next day mouthing the same inane expressions. “He was always such a good boy.” “He was such a nice kid.” “Never bothered anyone ...”

Of course there are no monsters, no demons crawling forth from the pits of Hell to ravage your flesh, and possess your undying soul ... or are there? In the cold clear light of day, we can laugh and joke about such things, but at night, when we are alone, down deep in our heart of hearts, we know that there are things that we can never know. Things that all of our science and advanced thought cannot explain, and we are afraid.

These may seem to be fairly morbid thoughts to place on the printed page (especially in a publication like Amazing Heroes); but they are even more unusual when you not only discuss them on a daily basis, but devote a fair portion of your life’s work to delving deeper into that portion of the unknown often termed horror fiction. Well, that is precisely what artist/writer (and now editor/publisher) Steve Bissette has been doing for the past decade. In a medium best and almost exclusively known for promoting the seemingly endless adventures of people who parade around in long underwear, Steve Bissette has never drawn a superhero comic.

No, not even once.

Perhaps best known for his work with John Totleben and the near legendary Alan Moore on DC’s Swamp Thing, he has, almost inadvertently, become first ah editor and now a publisher of what he hopes will become the cutting edge of horror in the comic medium. ‘‘The epitome of the horror genre,” Bissette told us, “Is about emotion. It’s about fear. And the epitome of fear is touching on or recognizing things that you would rather not touch on or recognize, hence they are taboo.’’

PLUMBING THE DEPTHS OF THE SOUL

To this end Bissette, under the guise of SpiderBaby Grafix, is compiling numerous horror short stories from a varied array of established and new creators to include in his ongoing anthology Taboo. “l would like (Taboo) to be a book that touches on the power and importance of the genre stories where people can confront , very unpleasant and yet very primal, aspects of living.”

Only when a person confronts his own fear or hate, puts it in terms that he can understand and actually hold in their hands, can he truly understand it. According to Bissette this is the power of the horror genre. “I think that that kind of vicarious involvement can ultimately be a very positive thing because then when you are confronted with dangero.us, life threatening, or disturbing situations it’s almost like you’ve had these little mini rehearsals that have prepared you for being more aware in those sort of situations.”

Bissette believes those things are important. So important, in fact, that he is committed to bringing them to the p11blic at large.

As one would expect, this is proving to be a monumental, uphill battle for Bissette. Aside from the oxymoronic nature of the very term “horror comic,” Bissette has to deal with the fact that nearly every other horror comic since the demise -of the classic EC line of books has merely imitated tile form without understanding the content.

“There are many horror films and novels, and especially horror comics, that I would call bad films, books, or comics, because rather than honestly dealing with these things (the crystalizing of our fears), they trivialize them or exploit them. The artists or creators who obviously have a passion, a vision and the imagination for this, and arc really skillful enough as writers or artists to actually take a reader by the hand and lead them through this vicarious experience and bring them back out the other end ...these are the people, and this is kind of the work that I would like to have Taboo embrace. It is out there, it is being done, but I’ve not seen anyone successfully put it under one cover.”

TRIPPING THE DARK FANTASTIC

To return to the roots of the project: in 1985, after over two years of pencilling Swamp Thing (most of that in collaboration with Alan Moore and John Totleben), Bissette left the strip. The grueling schedule of a monthly book had left him with a severe case of creative burnout-as had, oddly enough, the high quality of the collaboration. In a sense, Bissette had been spoiled: “After working with a writer like Alan,” he remembers, “none of the scripts l was working on (save for a couple I worked on with friends) even interested me.” Bissette even grew disenchanted with drawing. Desperately needing to recharge his creative batteries, Bissette started to take on writing assignments -scripting fill-in issues of Swamp Thing, writing articles for various film magazines, and writing stories for other artists to illustrate.

Then, about a year after he had left Swamp Thing, the idea of producing and packaging a horror book with John Totleben became a serious consideration. “Back when John and I were working with Alan Moore on Swamp Thing we bad a passion for doing horror in comics. When we were working with Alan, specifically around issue #29, we found that Alan was, as a writer, pointing us in a direction that we had never considered before. He was in my mind breaking ground, very simple ground, but breaking ground that hadn’t been touched on hardly at all in doing horror in comics.”

About that same time Pacific Comics was publishing Bruce Jones and April Campbell’s Twisted Tales, and Bissette and Totleben really became aware of the absolute lack of horror comics on the market. There was a brief period where (believe it or not) The X-Men was the closest thing to a horror comic, and another where Swamp Thing was literally the only horror comic on the stands. Both creators found that appalling, especially since horror in films, books and almost every other medium was flourishing. Yet, every time they attempted to approach a publisher, the companies would come back with the reply that horror doesn’t sell. “Trash is never going to sell,” is Bissette’s rejoinder.

According to Totleben, the original idea-an anthology along the lines of Berni Wrightson’s Bad Time Stories, to be entirely written and drawn by Bissette and Totleben -took form at a party. Later that year, at the MidOhio Con, they met Ce rebus creator/publisher Dave Sim and hit it off quite well.

At that time, Sim told them that he would be interested in publishing anything they wanted to produce. The deal that they eventually worked out was that Sim would front the printing expenses. and then, after the book began generating revenue, would take a portion of the profits for his efforts, with the lion ·s share to be split between Bissette and Totleben. This offer was attractive enough to get them seriously thinking about it.

When they got back to Sim, the two artists told him that a horror anthology was what they really wanted to do, proposing the Taboo project. Needless to say, this really wasn’t what Sim had in mind when he originally made the offer, as he would now be involved, even if only by proxy, with many creators. Nevertheless, he had faith in the project and gave the go-ahead.

Had Bissette and Totleben chosen to write and draw their own work (much the same way that Michael Zulli and Steven Murphy did with Puma Blues) then Taboo would have been a much simpler project by far. Making it an anthology only served to complicate the lives of everyone involved. Especially that of Dave Sim, who suddenly found himself being looked on as a publisher and began being bombarded with people’s pet projects and super-hero concepts.

As for Bissette and Totleben, they discovered how much they really did not know about their own profession. For the first time in their respective careers they were forced to think about per unit costs, printing, marketing, and all the million or so other things that their status of freelancers had thus spared them. “Here we were, professionals who had (at the time we began the project) worked in the industry for almost a decade, but we had always been working as freelancers. We never had to work with the nitty gritty of publishing.” Much to their surprise, not only were they forced to decide on matters for which they had little understanding, they were ill-equipped to make those kinds of decisions in the first place.

Thus, they relied heavily upon the vastly superior knowledge and experience of Sim, who had been self-publishing for close to 1O years by then (including a brief stint, publishing other people’s comics, most of which moved to California with his ex-wife, Deni Loubert, when they divorced and she founded Renegade Press). In a real sense, Sim became a mentor for the two men. While he did advise them on many matters, “Dave did not make the decisions on how the book was going to be printed or distributed or formatted,’’ Bissette emphasizes. “John and I made those decisions.” However. on at least two occasions they went to Sim with stories on which they could not agree and asked for his opinion.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

Things went along smoothly for a time. Then, as it is wont to do, disaster struck. In February of this year (1988), a dispute arose between Diamond Distribution and Aardvark-Vanaheim (AV). In brief, the problems were the result of Sim’s announcement that he was going to distribute a previously solicited reprint of the High Society trade paperback and the second printing of the Cerebus trade paperback by mail order only. Diamond, the nation’s largest comics distributor, retaliated by threatening to stop carrying Puma Blues, published by AV’s sister company Aardvark-One International. Recriminations on both sides were swift, with Sim accusing Diamond of “blackmail’’ (actually, extortion would be closer to the mark): “Puma Blues had been reduced to a bargaining. chip,’’ said Bissette. ;’It was like the schoolyard bully saying, ‘If you don’t give me your lunch money, I’m going to beat up your friend.’”

As the situation snowballed, creators rallied around Sim. There was a rumor of a threatened boycott of Diamond by 12 creators and self-publishers including, among others, Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Alan Moore, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle boys. Shortly thereafter Diamond announced that they would carry Puma Blues. This announcement was in turn followed by the “Toronto Sumit” which consisted of members of the “Gang of 12.” Eventually, when all the shouting died down, everyone appeared to be on cordial, if not entirely friendly, terms with everyone else. Yet the damage had been done.

GO YOUR OWN WAY

The short-term problems apparently solved, the long-term results were not long in following. Sim, after consulting with Bissette, Totleben, Zulli, and Murphy, announced that he had permanently dissolved Aardvark One International, and was returning solely to self-publishing. Never comfortable with public perception of him as a publisher (“Dave was just acting as a financial backer to our projects” is the way Bissette puts it), he opted out. Still, it was not just a simple kiss-off to the four creators and their two projects; Sim helped them out as much as he could. Puma Blues moved over to Mirage Studios (publisher of Turtles), and Taboo went the self-publishing route under Bissette’s newly formed SpiderBaby Grafix. By this time, Totleben had also bowed out of the project, first as co-editor, and then as co-publisher, for he too was uncomfortable with his dual role. “At first reading the horror stories was fun,’’ Totleben said, “but after a while it got boring. So, I told Steve that I didn’t want to edit the book anymore, which was okay with him because he was really into it.” Totleben also cited the great distance between them (Bissette lives in Vermont, and Totleben in Pennsylvania). “You really need to sit down face-to-face and discuss things. Over the phone just doesn’t work.” Accepting Totleben’s decision, Bissette geared up to take over the whole show. “Our relationship was, and still is, very strong and clear,” Bissette stated. “The Puma Blues situation realized Dave’s worst fears, which was someone threatening someone to whom Dave had extended an invitation, and who had accepted the invitation, and who was working in credibly hard on a project that they believed in. (Puma Blues creators) Stephen (Murphy) and Michael (Zulli) were being threatened as complete innocents.”

Even now rumors persist of in-fighting within the group. To this Bissette responds, “I stress that Dave, John, and myself, Steven, and Michael have worked this entire situation out between us and that we (Bissette and his wife Nanc,-y) are willingly taking on the role of publishing Taboo...We probably saved ourselves many problems because if Taboo had to switch from being a Canadian-based publication to being an American-based publication, we would. for one thing, suddenly be dealing with the enormous difficulties of international tax laws. So the fact that Taboo #I is starting as an American-based outfit is actually going to save us a lot of trouble.”

WHAT TO EXPECT

As one would expect, being new to the publishing game, Bissette has already made his share of mistakes-in spite of the guidance and council of Sim. Perhaps the most egregious of these has been the premature announcements made about Taboo ‘s release. Bissette’s initial intent was not to announce any story until the work was in hand. Unfortunately, some stories that were announced for issue #1 will not be appearing until later issues. One of these is a Steve Barron-John Totleben collaboration entitled “Space Invaders,” which Totleben now hopes will appear in the second issue: “If I don’t finish it Steve Barron will kick my ass,” he jokes. Bissette also regrets missing his two previously-announced ship dates (last October and this past May -current plans call for a late October release, hopefully by Hallowe’en). Although Taboos long lead time has come to be regarded by many as a typical example of self-publishers’ self-indulgence and disorganization, editors of prose short story anthologies will tell you that spending three years on a short story collection is not only not an inordinate amount of time, it’s almost considered rather rapid.

“I will stand by what we have in the first issue of Taboo,” Bissette said, “as being the cream of what we were offered and accepted over the two-year period. We would have had a very different book had we put it out a year ago. I don’t think it would have been as good a book. Some of the best stories we have in the first issue of Taboo only came in recently. By the same token, a number of the very key stories in the first issue were some of the first we received.”

Originally announced as having 176 pages, it was trimmed to 112 because this would a) allow for an accelerated publishing schedule, and b) they were getting into what Bissette refers to as the rock band syndrome. “If you have a rock band that has three members and you have a gig that pays $500, you all go home with a good paycheck. If you have a rock band that has 17 members and you have a full back-up choir and incredible percussion crew you all go home with $5.00.”

Similar in size and format to the Swords of Cerebus collections, each issue will be 10” by 7 ½” square and perfect bound. The covers will be varnished color paintings on front and back, with the front being by Bissette, Totleben, or another artis.t they’ve invited. The back cover will be dedicated to works by new artists or by artists who are unfamiliar to comic book readers. The interior pages will all be black-and-white.

WHY NOT THE BIG THREE?

Quite naturally, when discussing this project, the question came up, why independent? Why not present the idea to DC (where he had been working), or even Marvel, or First? Surely quitting full-time work to not only go freelance, but to self -publish as we”, is a chancy proposition. To this Bissette responded, “I can honestly say that had Dave Sim not extended the invitation tp John and I to publish anything that we wanted to do (which turned out to be Taboo) it never would have happened. Taboo, we hope, will stand as an alternative to the anthologies that have existed, and, as such we could have never done it with DC or Marvel or First.”

To illuminate his point, Bissette related that, at one point he was at the DC offices showing the 1aboo binder to some friends who were editors, and someone commented that DC was doing a horror book: Wasteland. Bissette dismisses the notion: “Wasteland’s not a horror book.”

At that same time DC was also producing Elvira’s House of Mystery where, according to Bissette, all they did was repeat every error they had made earlier in the ‘70s that drove their mystery line into the ground. “In a nutshell this is what happened, even with the quality horror anthologies, like Twisted Tales, the Bruce Jones anthology....First of all, they are all regurgitating the EC formula that Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein and their amazing stable of artists put together in the early ‘50s. At that time it was unique to comics. In the ‘50s, that was subversive.”

The EC formula generally consisted of taking a social wrong or some sort of injustice and trying to balance the scales of justice with some sort of supernatural intervention. One example of this is the classic walking dead story where someone has been murdered and the dead person comes back from the grave to exact revenge.

As a rule these were all wish fulfillment stories, the basic premise being that everyone sees injustices committed and there seems to be, in our lifetime, no adequate means of redress for many of these wrongs in our society. Thus, much of the power of the EC stories came from the satisfaction of seeing a wrong punished by a supernatural means. Or, to put it another way, “Whatever goes around, comes around.” Eventually (especially with the institution of the Comics Code in 1955), the law of diminishing creative returns took over, and everyone began repeating the same formulas over and over again.

This same son of thing occurred in the early ‘80s in the film industry: well-made ‘70s films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the original John Carpenter vehicle Halloween degenerated into slasher/hacker films like Friday the 13^th #s 1-1,006.

Joe Orlando, who started the horror revival at DC in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. came out of the EC school. He was one of the editors who passionately cared about doing quality horror anthologies but, according to Bissette, the editors that followed just couldn’t live up to his standards. “I’m not saying that they didn’t do their job, or that they weren’t professional-I don’t think they had any sympathy for the genre. I know that was the case with Eclipse’s Tales of Terror.”

Which is why someone like Alan Moore made such an impact on the industry at large. “It’s not just that Alan is an excellent writer, which he is, it’s also that he’s bringing life experience, as a reader, viewer, and Listener to the work that he was doing. He was not simply another snake eating his tail in terms of having been breastfed on and regurgitating the comics he was brought up with.’’ In AH #145 (Preview Special #7), Moore had this to say about Taboo: “For the first time I think that you might get a horror comic that is going to move a long way beyond EC .... Taboo, by its very nature, by its very tide, is pushing into territory that has never been touched before.”

THE CUTTING EDGE

For Taboo, Bissette wants contributions not only from the people currently working in comics, but from people both outside comic books and in other forms of horror fiction. People like underground canonist S. Clay Wilson, filmmaker Tim Burton, and prose fiction writer (and filmmaker) Clive Barker. By securing people of this stature, with names recognizable outside of the comic book field, Bissette hopes to add credibility to his book . “People’s ears perk up when they hear Clive’s name.”

Further, some of the best comic book horror material currently coming out isn’t in any of the horror comics but coming out in books like Raw and in regular anthologies and self-published books. Until now, Bissette says, “no one has assembled those people, put them together in one place. And they’re the people that remain on the cutting edge of doing won’t even say horror, of doing effective disturbing comic art.

“The only anthology that I saw that was beginning to pull those people together was Denis Kitchen’s revival of Death Rattle. They were very conscientiously trying to put together a very good anthology, and I think that more often than not they succeed.”

“I can’t say that the first issue successfully brings all those elements together, but I think it’s a good first step.”

To further widen the scope of his search, Bissette has recently joined the editorial staff of Fantaco’s Gore Shriek. He did this for two reasons; first, he enjoyed the title and wanted to lend a hand, and second, he wished to use it as a vehicle for placing good horror stories that had been submitted to Taboo but, for one reason or another, were unsuitable for the book. “I was first attracted to Gore Shriek as a contributor because they were trying to do something different, and they were giving people the freedom to experiment.”

THE FINAL QUESTIONS

One of the points that Bissette constantly stresses is that he is putting out a book called Taboo, and while he doesn’t think there’s anything in the first issue that could cause problems with obscenity trials and the like, he knows for a fact there’s stuff in the second issue that will cause some troubles. “In fact, that’s one of our goals. We’re not going out there as pornographers snickering, ‘Ha, this will get people pissed off,’ but part of the goal is to disturb people, to unsettle people. I honestly feel that that’s the goal of horror fiction, and art in general. There’s a quote by Franz Kafka that, ‘Good art should break the ice of the soul.’

“The only things that have ever mattered to me in my life that I’ve looked at or viewed, that were works of art or works of entertainment, were things that unsettled me or opened my eyes. It’s not just unsettling things that provoke you; it’s also things that are so beautiful or that touch on emotions that you can see expressed so clearly in your life...that move you in some way. I know for a fact that the comic publishers out there wouldn’t take that gamble. We had some interest from some publishers but as soon as they realized that we were serious about saying to people like S. Clay Wilson, ‘Hey, S. Clay, you can do whatever you want; they get very nervous.”

At the same time, that’s why Bissette wants Wilson in the book. Because Wilson has been doing comics since 1965 and yet he’s still one of the most provocative and disturbing artists out there. “He puts down on the page unflinchingly what’s in his imagination. I want that to be the core of Taboo.” In fact, after Wilson had submitted four plates to the first issue, he called Bissette and said, “I had this nightmare that I really want to draw; you guys into it?” Bissette enthusiastically responded yes, but what he got was far from what he expected. “It is this sort of Mark Twain piece of Americana. It’s light years away from that universe of bikers, and demons, and Mary giving blow jobs to Satan in Hell stuff that he usually does·

There is a very disturbing piece by Australian cartoonist Eddie Campbell entitled “Pyjama Girl,” which is based on an actual police case in Sydney. It seems that one girl disappeared and another was murdered but the body was never discovered. Later a body turned up but co ldn’t be identified. It was kept for years in a vat of formaldehyde in Sydney University. Finally, it was buried in an unmarked grave. This story in particular stayed with Bissette and Totleben for weeks after they read it, which is why it wound up in the anthology.

Other contributors to the first issue include Charles Vess, Alan Moore with Bill Wray, Charles Burns, Berni e Mireault (The Jam, Grendel), Jack Butterworth & Cam Kennedy (the

Light & Darkness war), Mike Hoffman, Tim Lucas, Tom Sniegoski, Ambush Bug creators Keith Giffen & Robert Loren Fleming (whose contribution “Chigger and the Man,” Totleben stated, is the sickest thing in the issue), Chester Brown (Yummy Fur), Rolf Stark, and Frank Miller.

Future contributors include Mark Askwith, Richard Sala, Toni Marnick, Cara Shennan-Tereno, Dave Marshall, Jim Wheelock (Screw), Tim Burton (yes, the director of Beetlejuice), Michael McDowell, Steve Perry, Tom Veitch, Greg Iro ns , Chet WiUiamson, and Tim Truman.

WHAT THE FUTURE WILL HOLD

For the foreseeable future, Taboo will be the only ongoing project for SpiderBaby Grafix. I’m not looking to build an empire of publications,” Bissette flatly stated. “I do not want people sending in all sorts of ideas for mini-series and such. I welcome any and all submissions of stories and art for Taboo. I have no plans of publishing spinoffs or other series.” Nor, he went on to say, is he really interested in any continuing features in Taboo, because of its proposed quarterly frequency. “It would be suicide to have continuing stories in a quarterly book.’’

In the long range SpiderBaby Grafix will prove to be an outlet for additional pet projects of Bissette’s (i.e., portfolios and the like). It is also his intension to have an annual of sorts for Taboo every fourth or fifth issue. (While he is hoping for a quarterly schedule, he is practical enough to realize that if he gets it out only three times per year, he will be doing quite well indeed.) The first of these proposed annuals will not re-collect material from the previous issues, but rather reprint older horror material that has never been reprinted.

One very important note: contrary to previous announcements, distribution of the series will in fact be handled through the normal channels of the direct sales market. (‘‘Actually

that’s the in-direct market; the direct market would be mail-only, from publisher to consumer.”) This decision to cooperate with the distributors was reached at the Toronto Summit. The members of that Summit jointly determined that, as of July 1^st of this year, everyone had a clean slate, and all previous “crimes” were to be ignored. It was felt that distributors had the right to carry or not carry any product they wished, and no one should be forced to carry any publisher’s entire line. Still, publishers had similar rights in that they had the right to choose how to get their products into the hands of the readers, and whether that was through the normal distribution methods. or mail order.

By way of conclusion, Bissette returned to the Clarens quote that began this piece, that horror fiction was, or should be determined, more by intent than by content: he pointed out that many of the pieces in the book will appear to be crude, or even primitive to the reader, but in many cases that look was deliberate. “The intent to disturb, unsettle, or scare people is really what defines the horror genre, says Bissette. “‘But the moment you tell someone this is a horror story their reaction is almost immediately, ‘Go ahead. scare me.’ Which naturally makes it that much tougher to do.

“But it’s

Drafted The story of One Man’s time in the Military

Between 1964 and 1973 some 2.2 million American men were drafted into the U.S. military to fight in the Vietnam War, the graphic novel by American artist, writer, and cartoonist, Rick Parker, Drafted, is his personal story of his time in the Military.

For those of you (like myself) who know of Rick from his many years working on numerous Marvel comics (including the Beavis and Butt-Head comicbook), his various Papercutz comics and graphic novels, or perhaps his artwork which has appeared in various publications, including  The New York Times, The Village Voice, Time, Life, U.S. News & World Report, or other publications he is a talented cartoonist with a very sharp wit. Parker began his professional work at his start at Marvel Comics, in the late 1970s as a letterer for, working quite a bit for Spider-Man editor, Jim Salicrup.

He also was one of the four original artists of The Pekar Project (SMITH Magazine, 2009–2010), which brought the writing of the American autobiographical comics pioneer Harvey Pekar to the web. In addition to his extensive Marvel work, he went on to again work for Salicrup  over at Papercutz, where he not only drew the introductory pages of Tales from the Crypt, but  illustrated a series of graphic novel parodies—written by Stefan Petrucha including Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid (2009), Harry Potty and The Deathly Boring (2010), Breaking Down—a parody of the Twilight series—(2011), Percy Jerkson and The Ovolactovegetarians (2011), and The Hunger Pains (2012).

After years of working for other companies on other people’s properties In 2024, Rick decided that it was time that he worked on a project of his own. He wrote and illustrated a 256-page graphic novel about his time in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. To be sure, while Rick did serve in the Army for around three years during that conflict, he wasn’t actually deployed into a war zone or overseas, but was stationed here in the U.S. In his eye-opening, and often entertaining, and disturbing tale, Rick relates the story, a shy, inexperienced, and overly protected teenager from Georga, who got drafted into the United States Army at the height of the Vietnam War and weathered out his time without it seriously damaging his true self.

Rick begins his tale from the time he graduated high school and entered a local community college. However, However, shortly after turning 18, his draft number came up, and he was having so much difficulty with his studies, that he wound up flunking out of school. However, he was bound and determined to reregister as soon as he was able, but it was to no avail, as he was tapped by Uncle Sam to enter the military, something he did with no small amount of trepidation. From here Rick goes through the many steps of transitioning from civilian life to the early days of being inducted not the military, and how disorienting that was. He described in detail how those initial days in boot came were, and if you ever saw any military films where bootcamp was depicted, then you have a pretty good idea of how those days were for Rick.

From Georgia, Rick went for his training into South Carolina, and as he had served two years in high school in ROTC training, he was immediately promoted to squad leader. Here again, Rick went into all sorts of daily details of what training was like, as well as his thoughts, and concerns as he moved through his day-to-day life. This included everything from digging fox holes, to marching, to learning to fire all sorts of weapons (including bazookas) and driving a tank, to going out and drinking with his patrol mates.

Eventually Rick was transferred to an army field artillery unit in Oklahoma, where he went through officer training. There he and his contemporaries were put through more training, hazing, workouts, getting yelled at by their superior officers, and cleaning everything, to within an inch of its life. In camp, everything was regimented, how you sat, how you spoke, how you cleaned, how you walked guard duty, and even how you prayed at mealtimes. Rick recorded it all.

One area where Rick had difficulty was targeting the howitzers, as this required a working knowledge of trigonometry, a subject that Rick had repeated difficult with. Later on, during a war game exercise, Rick got separated from his team and was captured by the opposing forces. He and the others captured were herded off to a mock P.O.W. camp where they were “tortured” by their captors, much in the same way the Viet Cong would torture them if they were caught in actual combat.

Eventually Rick and a fellow captor were left alone in a secure area where there was a hole n the ground. The pair of them saw it as a way to escape, and each crawled into the pit and out through the tunnel below ground. Unfortunately for Rick, while his companion went in head first and was able to crawl his way out, Rick mistakenly chose to go down into the hole feet first, and as there was no way to either crawl out, or turn around, he was forced to crawl feet first through the length of the tunnel to the exit to escape. Once out, the pair eventually made their way back to their own lines.

From here, Rick was transferred to missile school which indicated that he wouldn’t be going to ‘Nam—which relieved both him and his mother. In his new billet, life was a bit easier, as he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. During this time not only was President Kennedy assassinated, but Martin Luther King was also shot and killed. In addition to this, one of the soldiers at the base was also killed in a motor vehicle accident. Rick described each of these incidents and how they affected him at the time. He also related how he was asked to draw pictures of several of the men in his group, Rick even related an incident where he met a local girl and lost his virginity to her.

Shortly after that his group was transferred to Utah to meet up with a German NATO team to practice transporting a Pershing missile. Unfortunately, before the missile was fired, Rick was transferred back to Fort Sill, and he never got to see the missile fired. While back at the fort, while the rest of his group were still out on maneuvers, Rick was the highest-ranking officer on the base, which caused him to be called to deliver news of the unfortunate death of a soldier to the dead man’s wife, who was still in the hospital shortly after having delivered their baby.

As Rick’s time in the military drew to a close, he detailed a number of his remaining duties, including conducting a funeral ceremony for a soldier who was felled in ‘Nam, and to present the flag that covered the soldier’s coffin to the man’s four-year-old daughter.  That final act completed, Rick made his way back home by a rather roundabout route where the story finally ends.

Having grown up during that same time period, but having missed out on being drafted myself (I’m just a tad younger than Rick, and thus turned 18 shortly after the draft had ended) I was singularly unaware of what military life had been like during that era, and was rather surprised and shocked by quite a bit of Rick’s experience. Still, I found his story not only interesting, but engaging, and very well told. As a cartoonist, Rick’s art had a “cartoony” style to it, rendering it not so much like Beetle Bailey, but not quite like Marvel’s The ‘Nam either, softening some of the harsher elements, and making the whole thing relatable to the reader. All-in-all, it proved to be a thought-provoking and noteworthy tale that is well-worth reading.

HOT WINGS a NSFW Comicbook From David Campiti

We recently had the opportunity to speak with David Campiti the CEO of Glass House Studios, an animation and illustration studio with offices in the USA, Canada, Philippines, Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Italy. He has also worked as a publisher, editor-in-chief, and publishing consultant. Among his many writing credits is Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics with the legendary co-creator of the Marvel Universe as well as  The Marvel Art of Mike Deodato. We chatted with him about his current (adult) Kickstarter comicbook, HOT WINGS.

As creator/author David Campiti hadn’t planned on writing a NSFW comic book about demons and angels for Kickstarter. He’d been content with running crowdfunders selling classic comicbook racks, updating and collecting existing projects (Jade Warriors, Skyclad), continuing series he and his wife Jinky Coronado started decades ago (Banzai Girl, Exposure), or offering up prestige projects by a superstar artist (The Mike Deodato Sketchbook, The Cartoon Art of Mike Deodato).

Then David released one of his favorite projects, the new all-ages adventure graphic novel  Thundersaurs. It was big (treasury edition-sized!) and bold (complete with film designs and storyboards!) and had the massive appeal of Jumanji, Jurassic World, and Land of the Lost in its DNA and the response was…underwhelming. “I’d produced exactly the type of exciting all-ages graphic novel retailers and parents said they wanted, in a big can’t-miss-it size that store owners told me would make it stand out. Then stores don’t order it. Parents didn’t buy it on Kickstarter. We hit our minimum goal, but the project didn’t really fly.”

So, what next? David looked around for something inspiring for Kickstarter and found heavenly guidance. Or perhaps it was from the other place. “I wanted to do something polar opposite of my last project. Instead of kid-friendly, make it NSFW—‘Not Safe For Wife,’ as a friend of mine calls it.”

David had previously ventured into stories about angels and devils three decades ago, with a project called Angel Heat: The Ninth Order, for which only a single issue appeared. “That story dovetailed into a cross-over with my Exposure series at Image Comics, but because Angel Heat didn’t continue, the big payoff wasn’t there.”

When he started thinking about a new project, David came across Cliff Richards’ published and unpublished art for Angel Heat and remembered how much he liked Cliff’s designs for the angel. That became his starting point. David turned to his wife for visual support, and Jinky drew the first image of what became the series’ inspirational drawing for HOT WINGS. “It had all the elements—three angels battling a huge female devil erupting out of the street.”

For a series title, David chose the tastiest, spiciest name he could think of—HOT WINGS. “The heat of hell, angels and demons with wings, and hot in the ‘sexy babe’ approach, as well. It was certainly on-the-nose in that sense, but I thought it was a damned funny name for a government-mandated team of heavenly heroes.” David said.

With Cliff Richards busy drawing Isom and Jinky focusing on cover work, David turned to artist Mel Joy San Juan, who drew the first few pages of the story before another project claimed her schedule. So, David called artist Dave Santana, his partner-in-crime for one Goddess Girls and three Heroes in Training graphic novels at Simon and Schuster. Well-received by Kickstarter and WhatNot buyers for his sexy hit adventure comics The Devil’s Misfits, Double Impact, Jinkies: Supernatural Investigations, Dave had also drawn Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse for Disney, Justice League Unlimited for DC, and other stories for Playboy,

“Demons, angels, police, a powerful clandestine government organization, the ultimate villain, and sexy girls! How could I not love drawing this?” said Dave Santana. He brings to HOT WINGS a style at once fresh and new yet reminiscent of Marc Silvestri and J. Scott Campbell.

At its hellish core, HOT WINGS is about a blue winged alien who comes to Earth on a holy mission—only to be captured by the American government for study. After a literal demon erupts from the Earth, the discovery is made that the blue alien’s lifeblood can transform damaged, discarded, forgotten test subjects into angels for the good of mankind—not to mention for political expedience—the story is off and running. “This is easily the most mean-spirited set of people I’ve ever written, so it’s worlds away from my Thundersaurs or Exposure or any of those kinds of projects,” said David. Given how his Glass House Graphics agency in decades past was the art supplier for Lady Death, Purgatori, and many other such comics, it’s not surprising that David gets the vibe.

As with most Glass House-developed projects, HOT WINGS involved more “skull sweat” than the average comic book. “My script had piles and piles of notes and references to help Dave [Santana] develop characters and environments,” said David. “Even my notes to colorist Rohvel Yumul and letterer Keith Gleason were pretty extensive. From creating various corner silhouette graphics in each narrative caption to having the space angel speak in Aramaic, because in print that looks like ‘alien dialogue’ to contemporary comics readers.”

Will HOT WINGS eventually tie back into David’s earlier Exposure and Angel Heat series? “Anything’s possible,” David said, after a lengthy pause. “Though telling the most exciting story now is far more important than a long-forgotten continuity.”

For its crowdfunder, now running on Kickstarter, HOT WINGS features such unusual rewards as 3-D mouse pads (a dozen different, all designed by Jinky Coronado) offered as “the best place to rest your hands”. Besides, the primary HOT WINGS covers from Dave Santana are regular, triptych, foil, and metal covers from Joe Bennett, Jinky Coronado, Mike DeBalfo, Brian Miroglio, Giusi Lo Piccolo, Jenna Powell, and Silvio Spotti.

The HOT WINGS Kickstarter direct link: https://shorturl.at/oMQYe

Marvel's First Family Across Five Films

With the release of  The Fantastic Four: First Steps (now streaming on Disney+) we decided to not only examine that film, but to look back over the previous four films (more on that in a bit) that spotlighted Marvel's first family. So here we go, checking in on the world renown Fantastic Four. 

*****

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Director: Matt Shakman

Stars: Pedro Pasca, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Ralph Ineson

The Fantastic Four—Mavel Comics’ “First Family”—and whose appearance marked the official beginning of the Marvel Universe. Since then, there have been thousands of comicbooks starring the team, hundreds of cartoons, and four (now five) live action FF films, with this last version perhaps the highest concept, and the most thematically faithful to Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s vision to the characters. And yes, we say that even though there were a number of significant changes made to this current film.

Those changes include, but are not limited to an older (and somewhat more detached) Reed Richards, a retro-throwback to a (very different) 1960s, as well as a female Silver Surfer Shalla-Bal (wife of Norrin Radd, the original Surfer), making this, quite honestly, the very coolest of all the FF films (and yes, there reportedly is a sequel in the works).

Here’s where we are going to take a slightly divergent path, to talk about the first live action film, The Fantastic Four (1994). That film was from legendary “B” film Richard Corman (producer), and director Oley Sassone was fully made but pulled from release at the last minute because it was believed that releasing the small-budget film would ultimately hurt Marvel’s reputation and interfere with production of higher profile films. According to legend, the master reel and any prints were to be burned but eventually bootlegs of the film found their way into comic cons. (Truth to tell, we actually purchased one back in the ‘90s, making it the only bootleg we ever intentionally purchased.) For a time the film could be found on various internet platforms, but a recent search failed to turn up any service carrying it, we did, however pull up a documentary about the film; Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four.

Speaking as someone who loves comics, movies, and movies about comics (The Halle Berry Catwoman film sucked) The ‘94 FF film not only wasn’t horrible but was actually quite entertaining, and—in retrospect—it certainly wasn’t any worse than the Batman TV show of the ‘60s. At any rate as a way to pay respect to the actors who played the FF in that film—Alex Hyde-White (Reed), Jay Underwood (Johnny), Rebecca Staab (Sue), and Michael Bailey Smith (Ben)—were granted a fleeting cameo in First Steps.

The Next two Fantastic Four Films  Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) were produced by Twentieth Century Fox and took place on Earth-15866, while the 2015 film (also by Twentieth Century Fox) took place on Earth-15866. According to some fan theories, the ‘94 film is often placed on Earth-828 (the universe of the current Fantastic Four film) due to its classic comic feel, or on Earth-11584, but these are fan creations, not canon. Thus, while the ‘94 film was made by Constantin Film (which has been part of the production of all the previous films) and Marvel, but wasn’t part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe or any established comic book continuity.

Both Fantastic Four and Rise of the Silver Surfer have their detractors for what some fans have called lackluster, underperforming and weak writing, as well as poor handling of major villains, and inconsistent special effects. On the other side of the slate, some of the film’s positives include the visual effects and design for the Silver Surfer (played by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne) are consistently praised as the highlight of the sequel. Another positive was the chemistry between the main cast members was found to be enjoyable. The films are often seen as nostalgic by those who grew up with the comic, seen as harmless, fun popcorn movies which don’t take themselves too seriously. Once scene that is highly regarded by all, is the one where Human Torch is chasing the Silver Surfer, and passes through the building.

On the down side, a major disappointment with fans in Rise of the Silver Surfer was the production company choosing to represent Galactus as a giant, swirling purple cosmic cloud. Another was that Dr. Doom’s portrayal was widely criticized as being oversimplified, as an uninventive businessman rather than the complex, powerful monarch from the comics. There were more, but we prefer to remember it as a fun, if somewhat light funnybook film. We’re going to quickly dismiss the 2015 film as a badly miscalculated wrong-headed step. Twentieth Century Fox for reasons that pass understanding, chose to adapt Marvel’s Ultimate Universe for this film. Now while The Ultimate Universe (both incarnations) offer up well-crafted, highly readable, and entertaining stories, putting it out there as a film adaptation just wasn’t going to do it with the fans. Something they should have known in advance.

Returning to the current film, for what it’s worth, First Steps is truly a visually stunning reboot of legacy Marvel characters, who hit the screen with strong performances, particularly from Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm) and Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards). The film itself delivers a stunning retro-futuristic aesthetic, along with impressive visual effects, harkening back to Jack Kirby’s artistic sensibilities, and Stan Lee’s very appealing family dynamics. (Something that the comic itself has long delivered to readers.) The intra-family aspects of the FF have defined the core sensibilities of the greater Marvel Universe since 1961, and this cinematic incarnation only serves to continue that tradition.

In this film, the team once again goes up against one of their most powerful super-powered foes, Galactus (for the second time—this time as an actual “person” rather than the silly amorphous purple cloud used in Rise of the Silver Surfer). Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, the Fantastic Four must defend Earth from the ravenous space god Galactus and his enigmatic herald, the Silver Surfer who, in this film, has been cast as a woman. In one of the more controversial moves of the film, Julia Garner was cast as Shalla-Bal Galactus’ Herald. Which, as it turns out, wasn’t that controversial as this is Earth 828 (more on that later) not 616 of the primary MCU.

Here, the FF have been operating for three years (reducing their origin to a quickie couple of minutes of screentime and sparing those of us that know another full film recounting an already known hero’s origin). The team is a well-known and beloved group of heroes (apparently the only ones on this Earth), but all of that abruptly changes with the appearance of the Surfer and her message from the world eater. After their initial confrontation with the Surfer, The Team determines to head out into space to meet Galactus, which doesn’t go quite as planned.

Sue is pregnant and (one of the wackiest sequences of the film) gives birth to Franklin in space while fleeing from the Surfer (yeah, we know how that sounds). Well, Galactus does make it to Earth for a very dramatic showdown in the center of the city with the FF (which turns out pretty much how you expect it). What makes this film stand head and shoulders above all the other FF films is the attention to details, Ben’s Judaism, Reed and Sue’s relationship, Johnny and Ben’s interpersonal hijinks. Herby the robot, (how cool)! Plus, as previously noted, the way-cool retro-futuristic look of Earth 828 all combines to give this film a most amazing look and feel.

There’s one scene I want to call out. It is when the team returns from their encounter with Galactus and they reveal to the citizens of Earth that Whale Galactus wants to consume the energy from Earh itself, he would be willing to instead take Franklin Richards (Reed and Sue’s son) for the planet. A trade that both parents immediately decline. Needless to say, this enrages the population as it means everyone dies. It is at this point that Sue makes an impassioned speech that she is unwilling to sacrifice her son for the world. Which, to anyone raised Christian—is quite literally—contrary to their belief structure.

And then there are the cameos, Hyde-White, Underwood, Staab, and Smith pop up in a quick, blink-and-you’ll miss it moment. In another quickie, we get to see Stan and Jack stand-ins (working at a comicbook publishing company) Maisie Shakman, The Director’s Daughter, Fantastic Four cartoons (in the style of the iconic 1960s Hanna-Barbera series), Red Ghost and His Super Apes, Giganto, Mole Man, and more. Not to mention that there is an end trailer that pre-stages Avengers: Doomsday. Oh yes, the reason The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set on Earth-828 is a direct, meta tribute to Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby, whose birthday is August 28 (8/28 in American date format). The Director, Matt Shakman, confirmed this, stating that it helps explain why the characters weren’t involved in major MCU events like Thanos’s snap, by placing them in a separate, 1960s-inspired timeline, honoring the characters’ origins.

All-in-all, this was an amazing cool film that totally deserves to be watched, and is a fantastic part of the greater MCU which clearly is leading into even cooler films in the MCU.