Beating Off with Offbeat Boox & Comix!

Enough with the long Myrant flashbacks: time for the here-and-now, to share some of what I’ve been reading of late. Spring is here, the Center for Cartoon Studies Class of 2013 graduation was this past Saturday (congratulations, grads, you made it! Now, get to work!), and I’m in overdrive at the drawing board, the keyboard, while glutting out on reading and writing and no ‘rithmatic, save what I have to tackle for taxes, insurance, and planning retirement.

Recommended Reading: Books

* My favorite new book to drift into my massive mitts came sailing in from the good folks at Headpress, tapping a vein of lifetime viewing pleasure and research obsessions I share with its authors and editor of note. Judging film books by the “buy now/to find” lists they generate for me, the brand-spankin’-new Julian Upton (editor, co-author) book OFFBEAT: BRITISH CINEMA’S CURIOSITIES, OBSCURITIES AND FORGOTTEN GEMS (Headpress, 2013) is the best of its breed since Jonathan Rigby‘s STUDIES IN TERROR: LANDMARKS OF HORROR CINEMA from last year. That’s a recommendation from me, folks, and I gleefully devoured this book (amid a very busy week) in short order—then blew money I didn’t really have to spend on some of the movies Julian and his cronies whet my appetite for.

With the clearly stated intent of illuminating British gems, sleepers, and curios circa 1955-1985 other studies have ignored or overlooked, Upton (who crafted Fallen Stars for Headpress some nine years ago) and his fellow contributors (including Darrell Buxton, Sam Dunn, Mark Goodall, Graeme Hobbs, David Hyman, Martin Jones, Sarah Morgan, James Oliver, Gary Ramsay, David Sutton, Andrew Syers, Phil Tonge, Jennifer Wallis, the great Kim Newman and Headpress co-founders David Kerekes and David Slater) fill the bill nicely. Per usual, the book design is attractive and alluring stem to stern, and my only real complaint is: more, I want more!

I was delighted to find I’d in fact seen many of the titles covered herein as I was growing up. Surprising, really, given the paucity of access to movies growing up in Vermont, but late-night TV and local theaters and drive-ins really did play a lot of these gems over the years. Thankfully, many are in my vhs/DVD library, but for every one I’d seen or could so easily revisit there was another I’d missed or never had the opportunity to see (and that aren’t available in any format anywhere in the world).

For every title I thought “really?,” there were two or three I agreed fit the bill perfectly: The Mark, Yellow Teddy Bears, The Unearthly Stranger, The Strange Affair, Emmanuelle in Soho, The Squeeze, Sitting Target, Quest for Love, The Black Panther (a particularly blunt slice of true-life crime, served cold, and just resurrected on DVD by the British Film Institute Flipside label) and the like demonstrate a pretty wide net being cast and a healthy catch, with a preference for the odd crime, sordid insavory & saucy curios, baseline rock, and borderline horror fare.

Thankfully, a few that were impossible to see as Upton & company scribed and compiled this book are now in reach (i.e., the Warner Archives release of The Squeeze and Sitting Target, Sony/Columbia releasing The Reckoning on DVD-R, etc.), but there’s much here one can only hope BFI Flipside or some other label resurrects once OFFBEAT makes the rounds.

For instance: alas, Roy Ward Baker‘s bizarre British proto-spaghetti western The Singer Not the Song isn’t available in its proper widescreen format anywhere I’ve ever found, though at least the complete running time makes the UK release on DVD the one to get just now

• (here ya go, and you’re welcome).

I particularly savored the interstitial overviews of genres and subgenres, including a tantalizing overview of the Children’s Film Foundation and the two chapters on the short films and featurettes that were staples of British theatrical programming prior to the Thatcher era shut-down of so much of what fueled the industry

I in fact saw (and still have on vhs) Wings of Death (I reviewed it for Chas Balun‘s Deep Red), which was broadcast stateside (along with another British short—I can’t recall the title—starring Richard O’Brien as a man who builds his own better mousetrap—and snuffs himself in it), and you can bet I’ll be digging that old vid out this summer at some point to rescreen it.

I do have a few caveats that I’d be remiss leaving unsaid, however much this dilutes my review’s value to the Headpress crew (love ya, folks, and I do love the book!). For better or worse, here goes:

For all the attention given to a few slices of the lesser-known titles from favorite directors like Val Guest and Sidney Hayers, I still wish both were given their due with more comprehensive (if even more compressed) overviews, instead of the scattershot coverage herein, which assumes the reader’s familiarity with both.

Not a peep about, hmmmm, gee, say, Sidney Hayers helming Oliver Reed and Rita Tushingham in the extraordinary sui generis The Trap (1966), a personal favorite; well, hell, that was shot in Canada, so there ya go. OK, how about the delightful and too-long-overlooked Hayers/Jules Verne outing The Southern Star (1969) with Ursula Andress, George Segal, Ian Hendry, and Orson Welles sweating in Africa? Ignoring such Hayers diamonds to instead slavish (justifiable, but it’s hardly an overlooked film for my generation) attention on Hayer‘s masterpiece Night of the Eagle/Burn Witch Burn! (1961) had me wondering about the criteria here; that latter has been receiving deserved praise since its original release and in every horror film study since Carlos Clarens‘s seminal An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967) and any Richard Matheson retrospective worth its salt.

Still, I love anything that’ll bring more viewers to such excellent movies, so—sorry—carry on.

More abrasive by far is the rather shoddy dismissive attention given a gem like The Unearthly Stranger (1963)—wastefully devoting most of its text to the film’s most eccentric supporting player instead of Knish‘s documentary filmmaking background, the film’s curious roots (in William Sloane‘s novel To Walk the Night, which was also adapted for American TV on Robert Montgomery Presents in 1951; shot from a script by the writer of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, Nightmare in Wax, and Blood of Dracula’s Castle, sans an acknowledgement of Sloane‘s source novel!), or its real virtues—especially given the fact that director John Krish generously wrote the bloody foreword to this book!

Well, then again, Carlos Clarens gave Unearthly Stranger its due, too, in his 1967 horror movie bible, though it’s been ignored since and has yet to get any kind of legal home video release, ever. No accounting for tastes, however cultivated the predeliction for rarified bad tastes (which I share, of course).

Having just covered similar turf in a chapter of my own book Teen Angels & New Mutants (2011; which, BTW, Headpress declined publishing when offered it: hey, my subject matter was too obscure, which is sort of a badge of honor, come to think of it), I couldn’t help but be disappointed in the sketchy “Baby Love: Underage Sex and Murder in British Films” chapter from by Kerekes. David doesn’t even bother to discuss the biggest breakthrough international hit (and hardest-to-find now, due to its underage sexual antics) from this suspect subgenre (onscreen teen sex minus the murder), Lewis Gilbert‘s Friends (1971, with the popular Elton John soundtrack album that presold and outlived this under-age prototype for the 1980s Blue-Lagoon cycle), a film that even spawned an ill-fated sequel (Paul & Michelle, 1974) and starred the lad who The Abominable Dr. Phibes himself put under the blade and an acid bath. Ah, c’mon, David!

James Oliver fares better with his chapters “Swordplay: British Swashbuckler Films” and “Over the Cliff: British Rock and Roll Films,” but Jennifer Wallis‘s “A Dangerous Madness: The Asylum in British Film” falls short (what, no The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade—the most still-absolutely-ignored British horror-musical of its decade, and as just as bloody British as it could fucking well be with the cosmic credentials of Peter Weiss, Peter Brook, Patrick Magee, and the Royal Shakespeare Company and the fact it introduced Freddie Jones, Glenda Jackson, John fucking Steiner, and a host of other genre geniuses to cinema audiences in the most unnerving manner imaginable?), however readable it remains.

Having lived through these years and either lapped up or craved the slivers of meat that made their way into American venues, the gaps and blindspots in the internet-era version of what too-often passes as “knowledgable scholarship” instead of what it is (“passionate somewhat-informed fan writing,” with all due respect and no offense intended) is occasionally off-putting at best.

But don’t let my petty bitching steer you clear. This is an invaluable read and reference tome; I enjoyed every second spent with the book, and only detail my complaints in hopes of Headpress sponsoring a second Upton volume to pick up such slack.

Highly recommended, and my personal thanks to Julian Uptonfor sweetening an otherwise insanely busy week with such an easily dipped-into-when-a-few-minutes-permitted delight.

• I’ve already tracked down and ordered three used vhs copies of movies covered in here—snag your copy as soon as you can, and brighten your summer viewing “must see/must find” list yourself!

Also Recommended: Comix

* Carl Antonowicz‘s The Black Dog & The Hole at the Heart of the World (Part One, 2012; Part Two, 2013) kicks off as a dating comic with a twist or two in its black tail/tale. Meet Caleb and Gabi as they meet cute in the kind of bar we’ve got in White River Junction VT; stick with ‘em until they get to Gabi‘s apartment which (unlike apartments around here) sports a hole in the universe instead of a flat-screen TV in the front room.

I love seeing and savoring the growth in a new project from a young cartoonist, and The Black Dog & The Hole at the Heart of the World is a big step up and forward for Antonowicz. The more measured pacing and characterizations make this a treat to read and revisit. Carl‘s observational drawing skills are still coming along and have a ways to go, but the sense of overhead conversation and eavesdropping (as a reader) on intimacies carries the day in Part One, and Part Two ups the ante nicely, pulling me in further while teasing as to where all this might be heading. I’m on board to where ever this is going, be it in the hole or with the black dog (or—shudder—both?). However, I’d have opted for the double-bill of Scream Blacula Scream and Blackenstein on the big screen, there, Caleb, as a date movie or otherwise—but, hey, Canto, that’s just me. I’m just happy as hell to see them make a cameo appearance on a movie theater marquee here.

• Go ahead, get both dogs while you’re at it, before the black dog just shows up at your doorstep…

* Alec Longstreth‘s Phase 7 #017 (2013) carries Alec‘s venerable comix zine past the ambitious serialization of the brilliant fantasy graphic novel Basewood he wrapped up a year ago and into new realms with the first chunk of a long comic love-letter to the band Weezer. This isn’t a ramshackle autobiographical affair, either: it’s a tight, tidy, beautifully written-and-drawn and deliciously self-contained 10-chapter confessional/testimonial to Alec‘s long-term affair with Weezer‘s music, from 1994 (when Alec was 14) to his high school years (part 2 is now underway, and we’ll see it in Phase 7 later this year). He even caps the package with a scan of his Weezer fan club card (man, what a mug shot!), lending bemusing tonnage to the tunage.

How the hell Alec pulled this off not only in the wake of completing Basewood (his most ambitious solo undertaking to date as a creator), but the same year he pulled up physical roots from the Center for Cartoon Studies, married Claire (congrats, you two!), moved across the entire fucking United States of this-here America, and more—well, hell, I don’t know. I always think I’m a lazy slacker when I ponder for a nanosecond what Alec does in any given amount of time, and here’s a hefty hand-sized 38-page pack of goodness to reinforce that lesson. Highly recommended to one and all, essential for Alec‘s fans and Weezer devotees!

• Get your copy now, and let Alec know I sent you, please!

* I’ve been steeping myself in Michael DeForge comix heaven & hell all winter and spring, tracking down any and all affordable anthologies that featured even a page of Michael‘s artwork or narratives, along with a couple issues of his solo comic Lose (back issues are tough to come by; anybody care to part with a few?).

Thankfully, Annie Koyama (publisher/guru, Koyama Press) laid some divine depth-charges into my gray matter with the gift of Very Casual: Some Stories by Michael DeForge (new, 2013).

Just—wow. I’m in love!

Some of this meat I’d only recently devoured via their original publication (in Carousel Magazine, Nobrow, The Believer, and Michael‘s marvelous Spotting Deer), but a lot of this was and is new to me, too, so a fine repast it is, cover to cover. I’ve much to say about this book, and no time today to do so. Suffice to say Michael‘s comix have changed me—into what, I can’t say, but this is transformative, transfixing, and incredibly perversely entertaining comix!

Just trust me: go and buy this collection, while it’s in print. It’s one of my favorite books of the year, period.

• Snag your copy here, and don’t be casual about it.

More on DeForge in a future post, this I vow! And my eternal thanks, Annie!

_________________

All cover art or images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. Original text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

The Forgotten Activist Prozine Concluded: Part 18, Coda

As previously noted, WaP! #8 was the end. That slim 12-page issue was the final issue. As also previously noted, “I don’t recall receiving a phone call saying “Steve, we’re done,” but there must have been conversations about it. I just can’t recall, sad to say. It seemed to go out not with a bang, but a whimper.”

But there were ripples and wakes.

Since I lived on the East coast, far from the California hub of creators that spawned and publisher WaP!, there was no farewell party I could attend, no gathering to bury the publication, and I recall its actual passage as an odd, slow acknowledgement that something more than WaP! was gone.

In fact, an era had passed; a chapter as clearly lived, felt, defined, and over as that DC writers strike Mike W. Barr had chronocled in WaP! #5.

It was a passage (like others—the end of Eclipse Comics, the demise of Tundra and Kitchen Sink Press, etc.) that was duly noted and even trumpeted by The Comics  Journal. Since TCJ had been the only publication to openly wrestle with WaP! and its contentious editorial coalition, it was somehow approrpriate that TCJ would happily acknowledge WaP! folding up tents; Fantagraphics and TCJ had survived and outlived yet another competitor, in a way.

I was bitter about that at the time, but in hindsight, I can’t begrudge Gary Groth a bit of righteous grave-dancing.

[An aside: Gary and I spent some time together last spring, during his visit to the Center for Cartoon Studies' Industry Day proceedings. After literally decades of arguing any time we'd gotten together or conversed, we were both somewhat surprised and relieved to find we simply had nothing left to argue about. We've all outlived so many we once worked with, fought with, tussled with; we've survived. We savored the peace of two combative trench-war fighters who can finally just savor "Hey, we made it to here." So many others haven't. Here's to you and Fantagraphics, Gary.]

There were more immediate wakes and ripples, though.

Take, for instance, the immediate contemporary newsletter, comics agent Mike Friedrich‘s usually-four-pager Star*Scanner. Part of the young comics fans-turned-pro generation that Paul Levitz, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, and Jim Shooter (among others) were part of, Mike had gone from scripting comics for DC and Marvel to forming the first-ever comicbook professional’s agent service of his generation—and, as a former insider, I believe Mike was the first agent to be accepted by the otherwise blackballing-freelancers-with-legal-reps (by my experience) “Big Two” of Marvel and DC Comics. I welcome correction on that point, please, but I think Mike broke that essential then-new-ground, a pioneer who paved the way for proper legal representation of professional creators at a time when the biggest comics publishers discouraged any such muscle.

I’m not certain how long Star*Scanner was published, with what kind of frequency, or if it in fact predated WaP! (I suspect it did, but they may have been immediate contemporaries). But I want to bring your attention to one issue in particular:

Though I was never a client of Mike‘s, I was on his mailing list for a while (I don’t recall how or why). Among the issues of Mike‘s Star*Scanner newsletters, this special insert from the November 1989 issue (# 13, making that issue a five-instead-of-four-page installment) stands out, and I associated it enough with WaP! at the time to file this installment in with my WaP! files.

With the explicit permission of the author, I offer here Mitchell Berger‘s original essay on an aspect of work-for-hire law and the comicbook industry that still resonates:

Seeking permission to reprint and followup, I communicated with Mitch earlier this week.

Mitch writes, “I stand by view that single-story, comic books are not “collective works” as defined in the copyright law. Others agree with my assessment. In addition, Reid is still good law and since it calls for a strict, even literal interpretation of the copyright law, it’s bad news for people trying to bootstrap in other exceptions. While most publishers have covered themselves by also including an assignment of copyright in their contracts since the heart of such contracts – their basis in the work for hire exception – is a mutual mistake there is a real question as to their validity.” (Mitchell Berger, Facebook personal message, May 13, 2013; quoted with permission).

There was one other ripple effect from WaP!.

I still recall the edge in Frank Miller‘s voice when we talked on the phone about the new DC Comics newsletter, DC Shop Talk. “They co-opted the WaP! format, it’s obvious!” Frank bitterly complained—and, well, yes, they had.

I’ve got copies of Shop Talk here in my files proving it was still being published well into the 1990s—though I never got free comp copies of DC Comics in all the years I worked with/for DC, I was inexplicably on the Shop Talk mailing list well into the 1990s (here’s a couple covers from later issues I’ve held on to; I’ll dig out my copies of the initial volumes sometime later this summer, if I get around to it).

This cover alone sums up how completely opposite to the WaP! ideological agenda DC Shop Talk was. This pretty much says it all:

Hey, does Mr. Conscience ever tap the shoulders of the DC legal department, too (especially regarding the 75th Anniversary of Superman and the ongoing debacle with the Siegel & Shuster heirs)? I reckon not.

Perversely amusing as it is to sift through these file copies today, I haven’t the heart to post too many of these—just enough to acknowledge the damned thing existed.

There’s no reason to share the interior content in this context; it’s all shallow, by-the-numbers DC shilling, pure and simple, a narrow step from DC‘s ballyhoo to publishers, despite it’s attempt to foster an insider “just between you and us” tone as a vehicle to reach out to (and control) its freelancers.

The party, most certainly, was over.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this lengthy retrospective, and at least some of you found it worthwhile.

Enough is enough; next week, back to more casual blogging for a while.

Looking ahead instead of looking back, with occasional spotlighting of new, current, and forthcoming comics from the new generations of active comics creators!

Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ve got a graduation to get to. The Center for Cartoon Studies Class of 2013 graduates tomorrow morning, and I’ve got a speech (my seventh!) to deliver to the new outgoing class of eager-to-get-to-work-and-make-their-way comics creators…

Looking ahead, always… looking back on occasion to help a new generation make their own way, and go further than we managed to.

________

Repeating: This material has never been seen online before, anywhere.

I’ll continue sharing it, as long as the following groundrules are honored.

This serialized essay is ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette. The individual archival images and text pieces are ©1989 their respective authors and creators.

Note: I have not granted permission for these posts to be shared at Goodreads.com or any other thieving sites that cull blog content from non-participating creators; if this post is appearing anywhere but at the genuine Myrant blog/site (http://srbissette.com), it is stolen and should be immediately shut down and reported.

_________

Some ground rules: Please respect these rules, and please report to me (via comments thread or email — msbissette@yahoo.com) any breaking of these rules.

If all goes well, I’ll do more of this at Myrant; if the virtual archives are robbed, so to speak, this will be the last and only time I get into these kinds of archival materials at Myrant.

Please:

1. Post links to the relevant Myrant posts; please do NOT lift the graphics to place them on your own blog, journal or website.
2. Please do NOT lift these posts, and my text, verbatim and place them on your blog, journal, flicker pages or whatever.
3. Please note all copyright notices at the end of each post, and respect them. I do not own this copyright material, nor do I claim to; I am sharing it here (with correct copyright ownership noted) to share this material with fans, scholars and researchers.
4. If there are any problems, I’ll just tear this all down and abandon the project.

PS: I have removed subscription info from all images/text; the WaP! address is no longer active, subscriptions/copies are obviously no longer available (and no, I don’t know where/how you can find copies, sorry).

Let’s see where this goes. Thanks!

_________________

All WaP! and Star*Scanner images, content ©1989 the respective creative contributors and proprietors. All other cover art or comics images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. “Special Insert” text from Star*Scanner #13 is ©1989, 2013 Mitchell Berger, posted with permission. Original text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

The Forgotten Activist Prozine Continued: Part 17, Conclusion

WaP! #8 was the end. It was a slim 12-page issue, with no postdate (the issues were mailed in a flat envelope); at the time it arrived, I had no idea this was the final issue. I don’t recall receiving a phone call saying “Steve, we’re done,” but there must have been conversations about it. I just can’t recall, sad to say. It seemed to go out not with a bang, but a whimper.

Still, WaP! went out swinging: front cover by Frank Miller (above), summing up his (and many of our) attitudes about work-for-hire; back cover by Bill Sienkiewicz (below), satirizing the Brought to Light debacle with Warner Publishing withdrawing from the project at the Eleventh Hour.

And between those two covers:

Don’t strain your eyes trying to read the above article; I offer it whole, below, in easily read form.

Continuing: Jan Strnad weighed in with one more letter, and Frank Miller—who by now had Robocop 2 under his belt, his first real brush with both Hollywood studio filmmaking and first-hand experience with the MPAA and their ratings process—responded as well to both my “The Politics of Cowardice” serialized essay, and Jan Strnad‘s letter (see last post) about my essay and the final installment:

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was real vindication, coming from Frank. That meant, and still means, a lot.

The meatiest read in the final issue of WaP!—and its threnody, in hindsight—was the uncredited essay on work-for-hire.

I offer it here, complete, along with Frank‘s editorial cartoon.

Note: The narrowing of columns to frame Frank‘s cartoon accounts for the somewhat clumsy read that follows; bear with it, please, and soldier on.

And that, as the old saying goes, “is all she wrote.”

Mind you, none of the core founders of WaP! were done with work-for-hire, by a long shot.

I’ll spare you that litany.

Just look ‘em up online, or in Wikipedia, and you’ll see where their respective fortunes lay, post-1989.

Nor were the many contributors to WaP! done with work-for-hire, myself included—in fact, we are now in an environment where Kevin Eastman is writing work-for-hire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for a new corporate proprietor of his own co-creation, and Dave Sim is splitting his time between self-owned creations and work-for-hire covers for IDW.

What a world.

Personally and professionally, I’m also in a world where Alan Moore has exiled former creative partners, including myself. This means that almost all that I created in collaboration with Alan Moore as creator-owned shared properties is work I cannot profit from or reprint, essentially (by contractual arrangement with Alan, circa 1998, I cannot ever reprint our collaborative 1963 work)—nor can our creative partners earn anything ever again on that work—Dave Gibbons, John Totleben, Chester Brown, Don Simpson, etc.

But I still earn quarterly royalty checks from DC Comics—for the only work-for-hire collaborative work I did with Alan, back in the 1980s.

Good thing the bulk of what Alan, John, Rick Veitch, and I did together was work-for-hire for DC Comics, eh?

Not only that, but I’m struggling with work-for-hire and assignment-of-copyright contracts for ongoing work with creative partners in the ongoing Tales of the Uncanny extension of the characters, titles, trademarks (which are what require the fucking work-for-hire terms, per my long-time legal advisor’s sound advice), and properties Alan and Rick contractually deeded to me in 1998, when we legally broke up the 1963 partnership of 1992-93. A poison chalice, indeed.

Oh, the ironies upon ironies; the life lessons, hard-earned.

Here’s the full contents list for the final issue, WaP! #8 (February 1989):

______________

Contents of WaP! #8: 12 pages, 8 1/2″ x 11,” photocopied on white paper.

Cover by Frank Miller (above).
Pg. 2, 7: “Market Reports” (uncredited overview of all extant comics publishers, presumably the collective work of the WaP! editorial team, citing the nature of every publisher’s status—work-for-hire, creator ownership, etc.—and their main titles, reputation, and primary contacts).
Pp. 3-5: “Toward An End To Work-For-Hire” (uncredited article, see above); editorial cartoon by Frank Miller (above). 
Pg. 6-7: “Ethical Questions” by Mark Evanier (wrestling with publishing/editorial ethics, via a hypethetical situation); “Market Notes,” continued (pg. 7).
Pg. 8-9: “Mail” (letters from Jan Strnad—above—Steve Skeates (reacting to Denny O’Neil‘s letter in WaP! #7), and Frank Miller (above).
Pg. 10: “Rumors and Innuendo” gossip column.
Pg. 11: “Final Questions—The Solution” by Mark Evanier; “Back Issues,” indicia.

Pg. 12: Editorial cartoon by Bill Sienkiewicz (above).

___________

Now you know why I included the Brought to Light material from WaP! #7 in the last post, folks.

___

To be continued: The Wake of WaP!: Copyright Law & Coda

________

Repeating: This material has never been seen online before, anywhere.

I’ll continue sharing it, as long as the following groundrules are honored.

This serialized essay is ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette. The individual archival images and text pieces are ©1988, 1989 their respective authors and creators.

Note: I have not granted permission for these posts to be shared at Goodreads.com or any other thieving sites that cull blog content from non-participating creators; if this post is appearing anywhere but at the genuine Myrant blog/site (http://srbissette.com), it is stolen and should be immediately shut down and reported.

_________

Some ground rules: Please respect these rules, and please report to me (via comments thread or email — msbissette@yahoo.com) any breaking of these rules.

If all goes well, I’ll do more of this at Myrant; if the virtual archives are robbed, so to speak, this will be the last and only time I get into these kinds of archival materials at Myrant.

Please:

1. Post links to the relevant Myrant posts; please do NOT lift the graphics to place them on your own blog, journal or website.
2. Please do NOT lift these posts, and my text, verbatim and place them on your blog, journal, flicker pages or whatever.
3. Please note all copyright notices at the end of each post, and respect them. I do not own this copyright material, nor do I claim to; I am sharing it here (with correct copyright ownership noted) to share this material with fans, scholars and researchers.
4. If there are any problems, I’ll just tear this all down and abandon the project.

PS: I have removed subscription info from all images/text; the WaP! address is no longer active, subscriptions/copies are obviously no longer available (and no, I don’t know where/how you can find copies, sorry).

Let’s see where this goes. Thanks!

_________________

All WaP! images, content ©1989 the respective creative contributors and proprietors. All other cover art or comics images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. Original text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

The Forgotten Activist Prozine Continued: Part 16

WaP! #7 was comparitively modest 20-page issue, with no postdate (the issues were now mailed in a flat envelope).

This issue sported my one and only WaP! cover art (above), caricaturing the leaked memo from Texan comics retailer Buddy Saunders. As a lifelong fan of westerns (novels, movies, comics, and TV shows), I couldn’t resist playing up the Texas connection—with all due apologies to Buddy—which definitely had its political overtones. Besides, in ways I’ll explain (and did then and there), this was becoming an increasingly personal as well as a professional concern for me.

The controversy was covered in the lead feature by John Ostrander, whose DC Comics title Wasteland was prompting a certain amount of retailer outrage and activism spearheaded by Saunders.

My cover art was also the only editorial cartoon in the entire issue. WaP! was already in transition.

I had my own reasons for thinking the leaked memo from Saunders chain of comic shops was ominous: As I’ve detailed exhaustively here at Myrant in the past (see links, below), Dave Sim‘s reasons for scuttling his publishing imprint Aardvark One International on the cusp of publishing Taboo included his certainty that retailers would scapegoat any creator or title he published if they were angry at Dave over something completely unrelated to Aardvark One International‘s projects.

As I explained in my own coda to John Ostrander‘s article, Saunders and the Zeta Beam Sequence documentation was proving Dave absolutely right—and with Taboo 1 just hitting shops in the fall of 1988, I was now on the firing line with retailers and the retail community, and I was among the creators and publishers putting the retailers on the firing lines, too.

I’ve already shared with you my entire serialized “The Politics of Cowardice” essay, which prompted a letter from Jan Strnad in this issue of WaP!

• specifically in reaction to the concluding installment of my serialized “The Politics of Cowardice.”

There was also a letter from Nat Gertler making a couple of salient points about WaP!‘s self-publishing issue, noting (and I am in full agreement with Nat on this, as I was then) that self-publishing wasn’t quite the proper term for those who weren’t exclusively publishing their own work. Nat quite rightly cited Taboo as an example of an anthology that wasn’t per se self-published:

I wanted to be sure Jan got to say his piece here, too, in this context.

Suffice to note I, for one, am a much happier comics creator, comics/comix reader, and film and television viewer now that we’re in 21st century retail environments sans comicbook or graphic novel labels, or the expectation of any like that, and where unrated uncut DVD and Blu-Ray editions of past and current feature films and television series are easily found in a wide range of retail venues (not to mention streaming online and such).

Hell, I’m 58 years old—yes, I have grandchildren, but I know where the children’s book sections are in bookshops and libraries, and for myself, I still prefer the lack of ratings on literature, comics, and graphic novels. Now that the CCA (Comics Code Authority) is gone, too (as of 2011), it’s all history—for the time being.

What else was in WaP! #7 (December 1988-January 1989)? Here’s a sampler, along with a complete contents list:

The above two items are from #7′s “Rumors and Innuendo” gossip column (pp. 18-19), and illuminate two things: how the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s in comics was comprised in part by the larger publishers gobbling up significant independent publishers—co-opting those they could, crushing those they couldn’t—and how the cottage comics reprint industry of the 1980s paved the way for the creator abuses and oversights we still have today. 

______________

Contents of WaP! #7: 20 pages, 8 1/2″ x 11,” photocopied on white paper.

Cover by Stephen R. Bissette (above).
Pg. 2: “Good News About Taxes” by Joyce Brabner (on “The Technical Corrections Act” exempting “freelance artists, writers, and photographers from the uniform capitalization provision” discussed earlier in WaP!, and citing the book The Art of Filing by Carla Messman as an invaluable resource).
Pp. 3-4: “The Secret Wars of Buddy Saunders” by John Ostrander with “The Saunders Memos,” and coda (on pg. 4) “A Footnote” by Stephen R. Bissette (all above). 
Pg. 5-6: “A Few Words from Some Tired and Cranky Editors” (uncredited overview in Q&A format of WaP! policies and controversies); “New Deadlines” (short statement of 1989 deadlines for WaP! submissions “due to the restructuring of WaP!’s schedule”).
Pg. 7-11: “An Article on Spec” by Mark Evanier with input from Steven Grant, Nat Gertler, Steve Gerber, Christy Marx (on the issues related to doing any freelance work on spec, discussed in part via excerpts from an online discussion board conversation at the Writers’ Exchange Bulletin Board);  “Back Issues” (ordering info for WaP! back issues, pg. 11).
Pg. 12-16: “Mail” (letters from Alex Krislov, Dennis O’Neil (reacting to Steve Skeates‘s letter in WaP! #6), Terry Echterling, Jack C. Harris, Nat Gertler, Jan Strnad (reprinted above in their entirety), Brent Eric Anderson, John Dennis, and Arnold Drake.
Pg. 17: “Workers Unite!!” WaP! subscription ad (art by Howard Chaykin & Walt Simonson)
Pg. 18-19: “Rumors and Innuendo” gossip column; indicia (pg. 19).
Pg. 20: “Lights Out” (below); “Next Issue,” “Pushing the Envelope” (on mailing WaP! in an envelope for mailing).

___________

The final page of this issue bears reprinting, if only to make sense of the Bill Sienkiewicz editorial cartoon (in the next installment) from WaP!‘s final issue, and to provide essential context of interest to Alan Moore scholars out there (I know some of you are reading this!):

___

To be continued!

________

Repeating: This material has never been seen online before, anywhere.

I’ll continue sharing it, as long as the following groundrules are honored.

This serialized essay is ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette. The individual archival images and text pieces are ©1988, 1989 their respective authors and creators.

Note: I have not granted permission for these posts to be shared at Goodreads.com or any other thieving sites that cull blog content from non-participating creators; if this post is appearing anywhere but at the genuine Myrant blog/site (http://srbissette.com), it is stolen and should be immediately shut down and reported.

_________

Some ground rules: Please respect these rules, and please report to me (via comments thread or email — msbissette@yahoo.com) any breaking of these rules.

If all goes well, I’ll do more of this at Myrant; if the virtual archives are robbed, so to speak, this will be the last and only time I get into these kinds of archival materials at Myrant.

Please:

1. Post links to the relevant Myrant posts; please do NOT lift the graphics to place them on your own blog, journal or website.
2. Please do NOT lift these posts, and my text, verbatim and place them on your blog, journal, flicker pages or whatever.
3. Please note all copyright notices at the end of each post, and respect them. I do not own this copyright material, nor do I claim to; I am sharing it here (with correct copyright ownership noted) to share this material with fans, scholars and researchers.
4. If there are any problems, I’ll just tear this all down and abandon the project.

PS: I have removed subscription info from all images/text; the WaP! address is no longer active, subscriptions/copies are obviously no longer available (and no, I don’t know where/how you can find copies, sorry).

Let’s see where this goes. Thanks!

_________________

For those who want to read and/or know more:

An earlier, in-depth Myrant serialized essay detailing where Taboo came from — which covers in excrutiating detail the events framing and following this 1986-87 DC Comics standards and practices and ratings hubbub — is instantly at your fingertips by clicking the links below. It might answer many questions about what happened next, including the Aardvark/Diamond Comics controversy, WaP!, and what led to the historic Creator’s Summit of November 1988.

• SpiderBaby Archives: Taboo Origins, Part 1 (which covers Dave Sim‘s experimental offering to creators he cherry-picked, and details the events of 1985-1986);
• Taboo Origins Part 2 (horror comics and the birth pangs of Taboo 1, 1985-86);
• Taboo Origins Part 3 (1st draft, the Taboo Manifesto);
• Taboo Origins Part 4 (the Taboo Manifesto);
• Taboo Origins Part 5 — here’s some meat & potatoes concerning the pivotal 1985 Mid Ohio Comics Convention, my meeting Frank Miller, and my departure from Swamp Thing and DC Comics;
• (and this followup post on why I didn’t meet Frank in 1977 — I was to busy heading off to the movies!);

• Taboo Origins Part 6 — “The Learning Curve; Or, How the System Worked, and How It Didn’t” — discussing the events of 1986-87, including Dave Sim‘s battle with Diamond Comics Dist., John and I leaving Swamp Thing, and John and Alan beginning work on their incredible Miracleman arc, which you can now read in the greater context of the DC Ratings Debacle of that same time period (I told you a lot was going on, didn’t I?);
• Taboo Origins Part 7 — detailing Dave Sim‘s publishing experiment of 1987 that spawned a new book format ceiling for all comics publishers, as well as what Aardvark One International was meant to be, and what became of it, and why SpiderBaby Comix & Publications was born;
• Taboo Origins Part 8 — the events of 1987-88, with a focus on Dave Sim vs. Diamond Comics Dist. and the shockwaves in the creative community that spawned;
• SpiderBaby Archives: Taboo Origins, Part 9 (Conclusion) — which covers the events the led from Sim vs. Diamond to the first Creator Summits of 1988, and the first-draft ‘Manifesto for Creators’ — which culminated in the November 1988 Scott McCloud “A Bill of Rights for Comics Creators.”
• Finally, here is Scott McCloud’s page on his own website concerning the November 1988 creator summit and his revised draft of the Bill of Rights for Comics Creators.

_________________

All WaP! images, content ©1988, 1989 the respective creative contributors and proprietors. All other cover art or comics images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. Original text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

The passing of the late, great Ray Harryhausen this past Tuesday weighs heavily on many of us who loved the man and his work. Ray‘s passing has rekindled fond memories of the time Ray graciously extended to me in 1992 for a career-spanning interview.

That interview saw print in Animato! #24 and #25 (Winter and Spring issues, 1993), edited by my pal G. Michael Dobbs, for which I also painted the above “Gertie meets Gwangi” cover art.

I’ll be reprinting the interview in its entirety later this year in the debut volume of Paleo Pop™ along with that vintage cover honoring both Winsor McCay and Ray Harryhausen.

Stay tooned!

The Great Stop-Motion Animator & Fantasist Has Passed at Age 92

A great and beloved master of monsters, fantasy, and special effects—and a personal hero and role model—died yesterday.

There are countless eulogies already being shared, so I’ll briefly share just a few memories here. My pal Denis St. John shared the sad news with me just as my last Center for Cartoon Studies session with the Class of 2013 had ended, and I’ve been in a bit of a daze since; all my life, Ray meant more to me than any other filmmaker.

Ray Harryhausen and his work shaped who I am, what I do, the path I chose in life—but then again, he did that for so many, without ever meaning to.

Ray was, after all, just making his movies, his way, as best he could.

* My first vivid movie memory in life is of Ray‘s Rhedosaurus, seemingly alive. I was so young when I first saw The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) on TV that I was trying to convince my Dad to drive us to Coney Island before that great beast was killed, so I could see it, in the flesh—I somehow knew Coney Island was a real place, but little else—but my father had no idea what the hell I was talking about, and before I knew it, that magnificent monster was dead. Too late, Dad!

* The first name on a movie credit that ever mattered to me (the first of many) was Ray Harryhausen‘s, and thereafter I seized every opportunity to see every and any film his hand was in. Mighty Joe Young (1949) and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms were the two films most often broadcast in my area (they were in The Early Show package of vintage films WMTW-TV, Channel 8, Poland Springs, Maine, and were shown at least once a year every year), and they were burned into my brain as a result.

* Magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland (edited by Ray’s lifelong friend Forrest J Ackerman), Castle of Frankenstein, and Modern Monsters helped me learn about and identify those films, and the first-ever “must see” list of movies I ever had written down were Ray‘s. When I first stumbled upon a 16mm film rental catalogue (at the Waterbury, VT public library), a new venue and dim possibility of seeing Ray‘s films emerged, prompting my junior high and high school infiltration and takeover of school film exhibition opportunities—and my first viewing of many of Ray‘s films on the big screen, in color (and in 16mm).

* From First Men “In” The Moon (1964) on, I caught every one of Ray‘s subsequent films in the theater, as they opened locally. These experiences are all caught up with my own family, making all of them even more intimate cinema excursions and experiences. My friends all knew of my weird devotion to Harryhausen’s movies and monsters; my high school sweetheart Jill Chase would sing-song, “Ray Harry-hausen/runs through the town/upstairs, downstairs/in his nightgown…” I still hear her voice in my head from time to time, unbidden, singing that song.

* During my teenage years, I devoured all I could find about Ray and his creative and career paths. I learned and understood how he had done something no other special-effects expert had done: he forged a production team with a producer (Charles H. Schneer) as an associate producer, and shaped his life and creative work in ways no one else in his field ever had, or would (to date). This, coupled with my own father and mother’s entrepreneurial gusto (Dad and Mom founded, owned, and ran a heating oil company and a procession of small grocery stores), boosted my own determination to make my own way in the world, and somehow carve out a living as a creator, if I could.

* The best of all fanzines was Ernest Farino and Sam Calvin‘s FXRH: Special Effects by Ray Harryhausen, which I discovered in its second issue and was a subscriber thereafter. FXRH only lasted four issues, but it provided more information than had ever before been available about Ray‘s work—more, even, than Ray himself shared in his seminal first book (from A.S. Barnes). I kept tabs on Farino and Calvin‘s occasional credits and work after FXRH folded, as best as I could, and most recently signed on, pre-ordered, and purchased the fantastic Harryhausen books they’ve published over the past few years, the best anything ever on Ray‘s creations and career.

• The Archive Editions website is here; good luck tracking down the two out-of-print volumes 2 and 3 of Ray Harryhausen: Master of the Magicks, and don’t miss volume 1, or the exquisite FXRH reprint collection volume (the best-ever overview of any fanzine, ever, period), while you can still get a copy.

* I was fortunate enough to have met Ray and Diana Harryhausen in their home in London, a magical visit I kept short, not wanting to wear out my welcome. Ray spent almost two hours with me, letting me see his original models, his drawings, pulling out from behind a couch (!) two framed original production drawings from the 1933 King Kong. His eyes sparking when I mentioned how the use of light and composition in one of the Kong drawings echoed Paul Gustave Doré—and suddenly, he was way more enthused about my visit, taking me downstairs into their finished basement rooms to share with me his collection of first-edition Doré books and the remarkable original Doré painting on the wall nearby. Diana called us up for tea, and I got to chat with both Ray and Diana on their back patio table over tea, now spoken to as a fellow artist rather than just a fan. I wish I’d stayed longer; they were so generous and comfortable talking with this hairy cartoonist from far-away Vermont.

* Thanks to my pal G. Michael Dobbs, I later got to interview Ray—over two long sessions in San Diego, CA, and a follow-up phone call—for Mike‘s editorial stint on Animato! Ray was, per usual, incredibly generous with his time. For the first installment (it ran in Animato! #24-25), I also painted a special cover image of Winsor McCay‘s Gertie “meeting” Ray‘s incarnation of Willis O’Brien‘s Gwangi.

* I was also fortunate enough to raise my own children—my daughter Maia Rose, my son Daniel—on Ray‘s movies, thanks to videocassettes and laserdiscs, and to drive us all to a nearby Boston, MA convention where Maia and Daniel would meet Ray, in person. To see my own kids talking to Ray, his kind attention—it couldn’t have meant that much to Ray, but for me as a father it was the completion of a life circle that was inexpressibly vital, something truly special.

* I once got to do a secret favor for Ray, one he never knew of or acknowledged. I got a phone call out of the blue from David Del Valle, who was somehow involved with providing archival materials to Columbia Pictures‘ laserdisc editions (to illustrate the sleeve art for their movie releases on laser), and David was really rattled. Our mutual friend Tim Lucas had steered David to me—David and I would later meet briefly at a Chillercon, and had never really talked before—but David launched right into what was pissing him off. “They’ve got the wrong pictures on the wrong sleeves of Ray‘s films,” David told me, “they don’t have any idea what they’ve got here! You’ve got to talk to someone up there, and make them understand what a gold mine they’re sitting on, and how important Ray and Ray‘s films are to the potential audiences out there buying these laserdiscs.” David gave me a few names and phone numbers to call, and the next two afternoon I spent at home, away from my studio and the comics job on the boards, calling each and every number he’d given me, and a few more I was given by those people I talked to (those who would listen, anyway), until I had convinced two folks in Columbia‘s laser division that they really had something extraordinary, worthy of special attention and marketing, with Ray‘s films. Months later, David called and thanked me: “I don’t know what you said, but you really turned this around. They’re handling these films as they should be presented.” Mission accomplished—and, in some small way, my one shot at repaying the debt I can never repay to Ray for all he and his work meant and did for me.

* There’s more, but hell, I could go on for days, but I won’t.

• The only official website established and approved by Ray and Diana is this one,
• and here is the link to the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, dedicated to the archival preservation and restoration of Ray’s body of creative work.

My deepest condolences and well wishes to Diana and to Ray’s family and circle of friends; needless to say, he will be missed. He will be honored.

My own life would have been so different, so much less, without what he created and did.

Thank you, Mr. Harryhausen. Thank you, Ray.

Just… thank you.

_________________

All images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. Original text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

The Forgotten Activist Prozine Continued: Part 15

WaP! #6 was a fat 28-page issue, postdated October 24, 1988 on my copy.

The lead feature was a concise, to-the-point overview of the logistics of self-publishing in principal and practice by none other than Dave Sim. It’s still an essential read, and a call to creative autonomy.

I’ve already shared with you my entire serialized “The Politics of Cowardice” essay, which continued in WaP! #6, and Alan Moore‘s “A Letter from England”—here’s the links:

• here’s Alan‘s 1988 “A Letter from England”
• and the concluding installment of my serialized “The Politics of Cowardice.”

What else was in WaP! #6 (September-October, 1988)? Here’s a sampler, along with a complete contents list:

______________

Contents of WaP! #6: 28 pages, 8 1/2″ x 11,” photocopied on white paper.

Cover-pg. 5: “Self-Publishing & You” by Dave Sim.
Pg. 3: Dave Sim editorial cartoon (above).
Pp. 6-8: “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Success Story; or, The Art of Being in the Right Place at the Right Time” by Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird (Kevin Eastman editorial cartoon, pg. 7, above). 
Pg. 9-10: “A Letter from England” by Alan Moore.
Pg. 11-14: “Co-Publishing” by Larry Hancock and Michael Cherkas (on co-publishing The Silent Invasion and Suburban Nightmares with Renegade Press);  editorial cartoon by Michael Zulli (pg. 13, below); “Back Issues” (ordering info for WaP! back issues, pg. 14).
Pg. 15-18: “Mail” (letters from Stephen J. Rock, Joel Thingvall, Dick Ayers, Kay Reynolds (including contents of a letter from Congressman Owen B. Pickett on the Tax Reform Act of 1986), Evan Dorkin, Steve Skeates, Mark Nevelow (very interesting reaction to WaP! and rumors on DC‘s Piranha Press, which Mark was the founding editor of), and Leslie Sternbergher; “WaP! Still Wants You, No Matter What!” (appeal for letters, articles, art, etc..
Pg. 19: “A Brief Story About Respect” by Brent Eric Anderson
Pg. 20-22: “The Politics of Cowardice, Pt. 3: The Ratings Game” by Stephen Bissette (already presented in an earlier Myrant post, linked above).
Pg. 23: “Workers Unite!!” WaP! subscription ad (art by Howard Chaykin & Walt Simonson)
Pg. 24-26: “Rumors and Innuendo” gossip column; “No WaP! In October” (pg. 25); “The Comics Freelancer’s Lexicon” (pg. 26, above; cartoon masthead by Frank Miller).
Pg. 27: “Some Random Thoughts on Self-Publishing” (above); indicia (bottom of pg. 27).

___________

This interesting tidbit appeared in the “Rumors and Innuendo” gossip column, pg. 26, suggesting an alternative universe to the Disney/Marvel media giant we now have in power:

Then again, Michael Zulli‘s editorial cartoon (above) just about says it all… but remember, this was 1988, and we had yet to see the work of a new generation of self-publishers—Jeff Smith, Paul Pope, David Lapham, etc.—surface and change the playing field yet again.

___

To be continued!

________

Repeating: This material has never been seen online before, anywhere.

I’ll continue sharing it, as long as the following groundrules are honored.

This serialized essay is ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette. The individual archival images are ©1988 their respective authors and creators.

Note: I have not granted permission for these posts to be shared at Goodreads.com or any other thieving sites that cull blog content from non-participating creators; if this post is appearing anywhere but at the genuine Myrant blog/site (http://srbissette.com), it is stolen and should be immediately shut down and reported.

_________

Some ground rules: Please respect these rules, and please report to me (via comments thread or email — msbissette@yahoo.com) any breaking of these rules.

If all goes well, I’ll do more of this at Myrant; if the virtual archives are robbed, so to speak, this will be the last and only time I get into these kinds of archival materials at Myrant.

Please:

1. Post links to the relevant Myrant posts; please do NOT lift the graphics to place them on your own blog, journal or website.
2. Please do NOT lift these posts, and my text, verbatim and place them on your blog, journal, flicker pages or whatever.
3. Please note all copyright notices at the end of each post, and respect them. I do not own this copyright material, nor do I claim to; I am sharing it here (with correct copyright ownership noted) to share this material with fans, scholars and researchers.
4. If there are any problems, I’ll just tear this all down and abandon the project.

PS: I have removed subscription info from all images/text; the WaP! address is no longer active, subscriptions/copies are obviously no longer available (and no, I don’t know where/how you can find copies, sorry).

Let’s see where this goes. Thanks!

_________________

All WaP! images, content ©1988 the respective creative contributors and proprietors. All other cover art or comics images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. Original text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

I’ve recently been posting on Myrant about my own humble fanzine contributions back in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, and my cover art for John Szpunar‘s forthcoming Headpress book Xerox Ferox has been making the rounds.

With that fresh in mind, I want to bring everyone’s attention to a real fanzine creator/editor/publisher’s memories now in easy reach online.

My good friend G. Michael Dobbs posted two illustrated essays this week on his own fanzine Inertron (“…the substance in an anti-gravity backpack that allowed Buck Rogers in the original comic strip to fly…”), including the striking cover image, above. This was a silkscreen cover that Mike did with his own hands and some help from his dad, and it’s a knockout.

Man, I love this image, Mike!

• “A fanzine made me what I am today – for better or worse….” awaits you here, with the full overview of Mike‘s creation of and run with Inertron,
• and here is “More Art from Inertron” with more eye-candy from the fanzine of yore!

Thanks for sharing this with us all, Mike, and I for one would buy a collected archival edition in a heartbeat! Be sure to post some comments over on Mike‘s blog posts, folks, if you feel the same!

_________________

Inertron TM and ©1970, 2013 G. Michael Dobbs, all rights reserved. All Inertron images, content ©1970, 2013 G. Michael Dobbs and/or the respective creative contributors and proprietors. All other cover art or comics images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

The Forgotten Activist Prozine Continued: Part 14

Picking up the chronology of this retrospective:

WaP! #5 was a shorter 20-page issue, postdated September 1, 1988 on my copy.

The lead feature was Mike W. Barr‘s remarkable account of the 1966-67 attempt by a group of National Periodicals/DC freelancer writers to negotiate better page rates and terms for themselves, and their vain attempt to convince fellow DC artists to join their cause after the initial vehement pushback from DC management. It wasn’t a pretty story.

I’ve already shared with you my entire serialized “The Politics of Cowardice” essay, which continued in WaP! #5; here’s a peek at what else was in WaP! #5 (August 1988), and a complete contents list.

I’ll open with just a few excerpts from Mike Barr‘s still-essential article on the DC writers’ strike of 1966-67—these are excerpts only, but I think the full contexts are apparent even in this extremely condensed form:

___

So much for “the old DC Comics“—WaP! was still trying to make sense of “The New DC,” following up on the earlier issues’ ongoing coverage of dramatic new contractual changes at DC Comics circa 1988:

As we have seen over the decades since, from Watchmen to the Vertigo et. al. contracts (and their odious variation on rights reversion, in which freelancers must buy back their rights, whether the completed/accepted work was published or not, a complete subversion and essentially an eternal “option” purchase by DC/Vertigo et. al.), the rights reversion issues were co-opted and corrupted by DC, and an entire generation of creators fell for it. Now that other publishers are adopting similar contract language, the malignant influence of “the New DC” taints much of the wider publishing industries.

______________

Contents of WaP! #5: 20 pages, 8 1/2″ x 11,” photocopied on white paper.

Cover, pp. 4-10: “The Madames and the Girls: How DC Got Rid of the Troublemakers” by Mike W. Barr (Frank Miller editorial cartoons throughout, shared above)
Pg. 2: “Okay, So This Isn’t Our Special Self-Publishing Issue…”; “The New DC Deal Revealed” (above)

Pg. 3: “The New DC Revealed,” cont., “Blackthorne in IRS Thicket” (IRS investigation and prosecution of Blackthorne Publishing under the premise all freelancers are employed under work-for-hire basis).

Pg. 11-14: “The Politics of Cowardice, Pt. 2″  by Stephen Bissette (already presented in an earlier Myrant post; Frank Miller editorial cartoon on pg. 12, below). 
Pg. 14-15: “The Freelancer is Always Wrong” (uncredited); Dave Sim editorial cartoon (pg. 15, shown above).
Pg. 16-17: “Mail” (letters from S.A. Bennett, Steve Leialoha, Donald Simpson, Thomas D. Luth, and Steve Ditko).
Pg. 18-19: “Rumors and Innuendo” gossip column; editorial cartoons by Frank Miller; indicia (bottom of pg. 19).

___________

Oh, and about that letter from Steve Ditko:

___

To be continued!

________

Repeating: This material has never been seen online before, anywhere.

I’ll continue sharing it, as long as the following groundrules are honored.

This serialized essay is ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette. The individual archival images are ©1988 their respective authors and creators.

Note: I have not granted permission for these posts to be shared at Goodreads.com or any other thieving sites that cull blog content from non-participating creators; if this post is appearing anywhere but at the genuine Myrant blog/site (http://srbissette.com), it is stolen and should be immediately shut down and reported.

_________

Some ground rules: Please respect these rules, and please report to me (via comments thread or email — msbissette@yahoo.com) any breaking of these rules.

If all goes well, I’ll do more of this at Myrant; if the virtual archives are robbed, so to speak, this will be the last and only time I get into these kinds of archival materials at Myrant.

Please:

1. Post links to the relevant Myrant posts; please do NOT lift the graphics to place them on your own blog, journal or website.
2. Please do NOT lift these posts, and my text, verbatim and place them on your blog, journal, flicker pages or whatever.
3. Please note all copyright notices at the end of each post, and respect them. I do not own this copyright material, nor do I claim to; I am sharing it here (with correct copyright ownership noted) to share this material with fans, scholars and researchers.
4. If there are any problems, I’ll just tear this all down and abandon the project.

PS: I have removed subscription info from all images/text; the WaP! address is no longer active, subscriptions/copies are obviously no longer available (and no, I don’t know where/how you can find copies, sorry).

Let’s see where this goes. Thanks!

_________________

All WaP! images, content ©1988 the respective creative contributors and proprietors. All other cover art or comics images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. Original text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.

The Forgotten Activist Prozine vs Canada Campaign for Censoring Comics: Part 13

Before we leave the month of April behind, there’s one more anniversary I have to commemmorate that involves comics and WaP!—though it’s not as well-known as Superman‘s anniversary, nor should it be.

Stepping back just one issue further, WaP! #3 featured the most detailed overview of Ontario‘s abbreviated campaign against adult comics in 1988, an excellent article authored by vet comics retailer/creator/television industry pro Mark Askwith. Mark was writing about, and reacting to, an April 1988 CBC news program that attacked comicbooks.

Mark and I go way back, having met in the early 1980s when Mark was still managing Toronto‘s Silver Snail comics shop.

Mark also went on to write for comics and work in television for TVOntario, where he produced and conducted countless interviews for Prisoners of Gravity (which I occasionally appeared on, and still use in my Center for Cartoon Studies classroom today!), and was one of the founding producers of Canada‘s sf channel SPACE.

Mark arguably remains best known in comics circles for having co-scripted The Prisoner: Shattered Visage comics series (with Dean Motter, DC Comics, 4 issues now in collected trade paperback, 1988-89), among others.

Personally, I’m forever in Mark‘s debt—because he’s the man who suggested the title for what became Taboo—which Mark also co-created memorable comics work for (“Sharks” in Taboo 2 and “Davey’s Dream” in Taboo 4, both created with his ink-slinging Wordsmith and Silencers partner-in-crime R.G. Rick Taylor); he kindly granted permission for the reprint of his revealing WaP! #3 article today.

• I covered the contents of WaP! #3 a couple of weeks ago in this retrospective,

but held off on doing anything more than mention Mark‘s article until we had a chance to chat, and my deepest thanks to Mark for granting permission to include his complete essay here today.

• You can watch the complete April 11, 1988 CBC Monitor program discussed in Mark‘s article here, at the CBC Digital Archives (preceded and interrupted by couple of web-ads). As Rob Imes (Ditkomania editor/publisher) noted, “this video is like a time machine back to 1988…”

Give the Monitor installment a viewing, and read on…

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Yummy Fur #5 cover, “in the bullseye” via the Monitor program and other events, cover art ©1988, 2013 Chester Brown. Yummy Fur began as a self-published minicomic that Chester mailed to John Totleben and I in 1983; the series was subsequently published by Vortex (1986-1991) and Drawn and Quarterly (1991-1994).
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As previously noted (and shared, but here we go again, for the sake of completion in the proper context), WaP! accompanied Mark‘s article with a guide to interacting with news media in an environment that was ripe with increasingly sensationalistic reporting on a procession of comics shop busts. This was something no other publication was discussing, much less offering “how to/how not to” tips for dealing with increasing unexpected media scrutiny:

Next: WaP! #5, at last…

To be continued!

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Repeating: This material has never been seen online before, anywhere.

I’ll continue sharing it, as long as the following groundrules are honored.

This serialized essay is ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette. The individual archival images are ©1988 their respective authors and creators.

Note: I have not granted permission for these posts to be shared at Goodreads.com or any other thieving sites that cull blog content from non-participating creators; if this post is appearing anywhere but at the genuine Myrant blog/site (http://srbissette.com), it is stolen and should be immediately shut down and reported.

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Some ground rules: Please respect these rules, and please report to me (via comments thread or email — msbissette@yahoo.com) any breaking of these rules.

If all goes well, I’ll do more of this at Myrant; if the virtual archives are robbed, so to speak, this will be the last and only time I get into these kinds of archival materials at Myrant.

Please:

1. Post links to the relevant Myrant posts; please do NOT lift the graphics to place them on your own blog, journal or website.
2. Please do NOT lift these posts, and my text, verbatim and place them on your blog, journal, flicker pages or whatever.
3. Please note all copyright notices at the end of each post, and respect them. I do not own this copyright material, nor do I claim to; I am sharing it here (with correct copyright ownership noted) to share this material with fans, scholars and researchers.
4. If there are any problems, I’ll just tear this all down and abandon the project.

PS: I have removed subscription info from all images/text; the WaP! address is no longer active, subscriptions/copies are obviously no longer available (and no, I don’t know where/how you can find copies, sorry).

Let’s see where this goes. Thanks!

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All WaP! images, content ©1988 the respective creative contributors and proprietors. All other cover art or comics images © respective year of original publication their original creators and/or proprietors. “The Real Violence on Television” ©1988, 2013 Mark Askwith, reprinted with permission; all original-to-this-blog text material ©2013 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. Permission to link, post pingbacks granted, but please do not quote excessively or post these essays on your own blogs, websites or venues; it’s not yours to play with. NOTE: All images are posted for archival and educational purposes only, under applicable US Fair Use laws.