Say It With Flowers: Ladykillers!

Final Look at Faux-1952-Four-Color Funnybooks

It’s finally time to bring your attention to my home editorial labors with Team Crime, and our concentrated two-week crime comic craziness!

Since I’ve already dedicated more Myrant space to Team Crime’s faux-’52 funnybook than any other team’s creations, I’ll not go on about what an honor it was to work with Andy Christensen, Carl Mefferd, Tom Casteel, Josh Kramer, Naomi Kane and Jesse Mead on this project.

But, like, it was, and they came through in spades. Team Crime was the second team to have their comic completed, printed, collated and stapled, buying them a day’s more rest than others had before the 10 AM deadline last Tuesday morning. They’re now hardened cartooning cons, and they know the score in this dog-eat-dog world!

I cooked up the crime host character, Coroner Grimes, and pencilled all his cameo appearances, leaving it to the respective story inkers to integrate the Coroner into the appropriate visual style of each respective story. I should have paid more attention to penciling in each style, but – 

Every editor worked to a single agreed-upon template for the inside-front-cover editorial page. I’ll replay this image here to point out my portrait of our crime host Coroner Grimes (here with ‘Stinky’ Solomon, horror host of last year’s Dark Tomb of Dread faux-pre-Code comicbook project, on the slab) and the complete story credits, which tells you who did what on each story.

We also had the sickest ad of the project, in every sense of the word…

Based on an actual 1950s crime comicbook ad for an innocuous if sorta creepy ‘action doll,’ I revamped the copy and added only a few touches to the vintage ad art to evoke the dread legacy of the notorious Albert Fish (look him up). In the initial stage of brainstorming on the very first day, Fish’s 1947 arrest and conviction for almost unspeakable crimes (pedophilia, cannibalism, etc.) were briefly considered for one of our four stories, a notion we quickly retired. Frankly, this editor felt it was just too gruesome content-wise even for a pre-Code crime comicbook — but not for an utterly tasteless back-cover ad!

All in all, an incredible effort and bountiful harvest from Team Crime — we got ‘er done, and all deadlines were met. On to the next project!

All artwork ©2010 respective artists, writer, lettering, logo and production team: Andy Christensen, Carl Mefferd, Tom Casteel, Josh Kramer, Naomi Kane, Jesse Mead and editor Stephen R. Bissette in this installment. All rights reserved; Ladykillers cover ©2010 Carl Mefferd/SR Bissette/Team Crime/Criminal Color/Solomon Comics; Ladykillers splash pages, panel art and ad art ©2010 Andy Christensen/Carl Mefferd/Tom Casteel/ Josh Kramer/ Naomi Kane/ Jesse Mead/Stephen R. Bissette/Solomon Comics; posted with permission. Special thanks to Josh Kramer for providing the images posted here.

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Outback Western Action!

First Looks at Faux-1952-Four-Color Funnybooks, Continued –

Jason Lutes (Jar of Fools, Berlin) has always loved western comicbooks, so no surprise when he chose to helm the faux-1952 western title, which took an unexpected turn in its conceptual stages… and became unlike any 1950s western comicbook on American newsstands!

Team Western — comprised of managing editor Betsey Swardlick, pencilers Lena Chandhok and Benjamin Indyk, inkers Indyk, Chandhok, Jacob Montgomery and Paul Swartz, colorists Kevin Uehlein, Swartz and Swardlick (Kevin also handled layout) — had an ace up its sleeve: class and team mate Ben Indyk is from Australia.

Thus, creating what would have been in 1952 America’s first-ever “Australian Adventure Comic” brought a fresh spin to the genre, and Jason and the entire creative team certainly ran with that premise. 

Via three stories — “The Rise of the Desert Son!!”, “The Devil’s Den!” and “Boomerang Heart!!” — a complete origin story unfolds for the Dingo Kid, born Nathaniel Nigelworth but raised by dingos when a bushranger named Blind Snake kills his parents (mother Elizabeth and his father, a Lieutenent and Northern Territory lawman). As an adolescent, Nathaniel leaves his dingo tribe to join a Kaytetye Aboriginal tribe, who wholeheartedly adopt the boy and teach him their ways. He grows to early manhood with the tribe — only to return from the hunt to find his adoptive human family butchered, too, and his love Adelaide kidnapped.

Now, there’s an origin story! And that’s just the first of the three tales herein.

Last year, two of the creative teams had embraced single-issue stories: editor James Sturm’s Fantastic Tales from Beyond the Future (“The Beacon’s Glow starring — Vince Powers, Boy Commander” by Tim Stout, Jason Week, Kevin Kilgore, Holly Foltz, Bill Volk, and Eric Baker) and editor Paul Karasik’s Wacky, Silly, Funny Animals (via three separate stories that ingeniously converge, lovingly crafted by Randall Drew, Nick Patten, Phillip Sherwood-Banks, ‘Mo,’ Casey Bohn and Joshua Rosen).

This year, only Team Western linked their trio of stories into a single, completely engaging whole.

The Dingo Kid boasts an avenger’s ire, a lover’s heart (searching for — and finding, in the final story — his lost love), an Aborigine’s tribal tracking and hunting skills (and boomerang), and a feral bond with his dingo brothers, making for an instantly engaging and original western hero indeed.

Team Western also created the most effective and memorable villain of this year’s bumper crop. Blind Snake is a terrific conceit — a completely ruthless, amoral blindfolded bushranger who’s also a dead shot — and he lends considerable weight to the entire adventure.

The whole provides the satisfying read of a particularly edgy Dell Comic of the genre and era. I’m a huge Jesse Marsh fan, and I must say some passages of The Dingo Kid pack the graphic punch of Marsh’s best Dell Tarzan pages and sequences. Cover to cover, this comicbook reads beautifully!

The Dingo Kid also featured the best (and only) humor feature of this year’s quartet of titles. “For the Joeys” offers two hilarious pages of Aussie lore (some of it completely invented) featuring a character created by Kevin Uehlein, DidgeriDingo. Great stuff!

The ever-present faux-’52 ad pages score here as well, including the multi-ad “Distraction Depot” which offers (among other delights) an “Opium Set” to young readers in need of further escapism.

All in all, a terrific piece of work from Jason and Team Western — or, as they refer to themselves in the writing credits, The Dingo Kids!

All artwork ©2010 respective artists, writer, lettering, logo and production team: Betsey Swardlick, Benjamin Indyk, Lena Chandhok, Jacob Montgomery, Paul Swartz, Kevin Uehlein and editor Jason Lutes in this installment. All rights reserved; The Dingo Kid cover, splash page, panel art and ad art ©2010 Betsey Swardlick/Benjamin Indyk/Lena Chandhok/Jacob Montgomery/Paul Swartz/Kevin Uehlein/Jason Lutes/Solomon Comics; posted with permission. Special thanks to Betsey Swardlick for providing the images posted here.

Coming Up: A Final Fit of Faux-’52 Funnybook Frenzy!

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