The Archie Experiment: Spire Christian Comics.

Oooo! Take that,, uhhh... unnamed girl.

So, a few posts back I told you about the late 1980s, early 1990s Archie experiment. It wasn't, however, the first. Not by a long shot. Hell, Archie's been experimenting since the 1940s. But today I want to tell you about something that's from the 1970s (And into the 1980s), Archie's experiment into Christian comics publications.

Yup, that's right, the super-secular comic company, run by a dynasty of Jewish publishers, decided to license their characters for use in Christian comics! How the hell does that happen?

How to Read: Jack Kirby.

All the images used for this page are from
Captain Victory #1 or Silver Star #1, both
from Kirby's time with Pacific Comics.

So lately I've been chatting with my friends about Jack Kirby comics and I thought I'd write you up a five step guide to getting started reading Jack Kirby comics.

Kirby was one of the greatest artists ever to pick up a pencil. I don't just mean in comics, I mean ever. The guy was so creative it seemed to be bursting from his every pore. It's hard to think of another single creator who did more for American comics than Jack Kirby did. Everything he ever did was influential, or at least really powerful.

But some modern readers find his work hard to get into.

I can understand it. Kirby's work, while wide-ranging is also very much of a style. If you don't get into Jack's art style, it can be hard to get into reading his works. Which is really unfortunate because you're missing out on so much. So the goal of this guide is to give you the tools to be able to immerse yourself in Kirby's world. To just let yourself go.

Phantom's in the window, again!

I'm so jealous! Why couldn't I win this
uhhh... "awesome" art?

So recently I bought a pile of 25 Phantom comics from a second hand store. Out of all of them, only two had classic Phantom stories from the newspapers. Almost all of them were Team Fantomen stories. (I talk more about that in this post, if you're confused.)

So out of 25 issues only two had newspaper stories. Out of 25 issues how many had a classic image of Phantom in a window? One. One of the newspaper issues.

This is why I hate Team Fantomen stories! They just don't honour the classic Phantom iconography!!

Fortunately, Sy Barry? Sy Barry knows what he's doing!

This story is actually a really typical Phantom story. It's about secrets. Secrets are really important to the Phantom, and to the Phantom mythology. A lot of Phantom stories are about either uncovering ancient secrets (a really common theme in Team Fantomen stories) or guarding secrets against people who just wouldn't understand.

The Archie Experiment: Jughead's Diner.

Dan Parent and Bill Golliher are my heroes!

It's hard to think of Archie comics as being particularly experimental. After all, they're such incredibly formulaic comics. Believe it or not, though, Archie comics do go through some really experimental phases.

The one I'm most familiar with is the late 80s, early 90s Archie experiment. During this period there was an explosion of new, experimental, often insane titles. New aesthetics were experimented with. Character dynamics were experimented with. Some things were successful, some things weren't, but it was an exciting time to be reading Archie comics.

Don't believe me? Don't think they would have been brave enough to mess with the formula for familiar, iconic characters?

Well, my friend, during this time Jughead Jones acquired not one, not two, but three new love interests. (All of them were redheads, and one of them was actually Archie's descendant from the future in the comic Jughead's Time Police. Yeah... that's an entire other post in and of itself.)

One of my all time favourite Archie experiments, though, was Jughead's Diner. Jughead's Diner was a fantasy sci-fi comic set in a surreal 1950s diner setting, starring Jughead as basically the chosen one, meant to save the world. No... seriously.

Four of the Best: Marvel Masterworks FF #1

So lately I've been reading Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four. The first volume, handilly numbered #1, contains the first 10 issues of Fantastic Four, in glorious remastered colour. It's the first time I've ever read these stories in colour -- well, most of them (I own issue 8, and a repro issue 1). For a huge Fantastic Four fan like me it's a joy to have an excuse to enjoy these stories again.

So I thought I'd pick out four of the very best panels from the TPB -- one for each main character -- to share with you. So let us begin, shall we?

Let's talk about Australian Kids' Magazines

All the images from this article
are from Krash #91. Krash is
known for its subtle covers.

As I pointed out in an earlier article there exists in Australia a wide range of magazines for children that celebrate and, let's be honest, shill youth pop culture. These are some of the only comics-related material produced exclusively in Australia for Australian children. They're available everywhere, and sell quite well.

Each one is filled to the brim with articles that barely hide the fact that they're actually advertisements for the most popular pop culture of the day. They're written directly to kids, they're colourful, and they're about things kids care about.

Also, they generally have comic pages as a backup in them! Actually that's probably stretching things. Most of them have a very small, teenie-tiny number of comic pages in the back of the issue, usually something like 6 pages of comics in a 100 page magazine.

The magazines are, frankly, incredibly crass. They try to write to kids on their own level, using 'young slang', and writing things in a way that sounds awesome and cool! Often using words like awsm and kewl. The result is that they're kind low on the literacy scales, and very hard to read if you're not 10.

Let's review Phantom #1607

In Australia Phantom has been published continuously since 1947 in a comic book format by Frew Publications. Frew's version of the Phantom comic is the longest running comic book based on the character in the world. Almost all the material in it is reprints of either newspaper strips or comic stories from the Scandanavian comic Fantomen.

I've be workin' on the... circus.

When buying Frew Phantoms I basically pick-and-choose, buying pretty much only the issues which have 'Phantom Classic' on the cover, because that usually means it's a reprint of a Lee Falk newspaper strip.

This comic isn't. It's a reprint of an old Team Fantomen story.

Let's Review Fear Itself: FF

Cover by Gabrielle Dell'otto

Let's see, what can I say about Fear Itself: FF?

It's pointless.



Man, that was a short review. I should probably talk more about it, shouldn't I? The book is written by Cullen Bunn, you can visit his blog here. It's drawn by Tom Grummett and inked by Cory Hamscher and Rick Magyar.

It's a one-shot that ties into the Fear Itself event. Basically Fear Itself goes like this: an ancient Norse god is giving out power hammers to a bunch of dudes and making them evil. One of the dudes happens to be The Thing. So he's evil.

That means he has to fight the FF.

Now that's a formula... for DRAMA!

There's a Phantom at Your Window.

From "Little Toma", by Lee Falk and
Wilson McCoy. Reprinted in Frew #931A

Have you ever noticed that somtimes comics have themselves little visual motifs. Especially ongoing long-running series. They have these little visual queues or concepts that pop up again and again. I've noticed that.

I've especially noticed it with The Phantom. Sy Barry's punch panels are so iconic that they've been parodied about a million times.

But sometimes there's a less commonly recurring visual motif. Something that comes up every now and then... just often enough for you to notice it as a pattern. For example... the Phantom sure as hell likes peeping in people's windows!

Let's talk about the Beano

To make it easy on me, all these scans
are from Beano #3348, from 2006. I chose
it completely at random.

Ahh the Beano.

The Beano is an ongoing British comic book that started way back in 1938. It’s not a fart remedy, or an obscure Portuguese band. It’s not an ESPN commentator. It’s not even an Eric Clapton album. Okay, it’s on the album, and some people call it the Beano album, but that’s not what I’m talking about!

Look, the point is – the Beano is a British comic book. In fact it’s THE quintessential British comic book. It’s not the oldest British comic book, it’s not even the oldest book that’s still in print. It is however the longest running weekly comic book of all time. So that’s pretty impressive.

The Beano, like most British comics is an anthology series made up of a bunch of comic strips. Each strip stars a main character, or cast of characters, and generally the title of the strips describe that character and who they are pretty thoroughly.

There’s Dennis the Menace, Biffo the Bear, Minnie the Minx, Rodger the Dodger, Billy Whizz, and… god there’s so many others.

Hey Maniacs! Here's a Transformers quiz!

So there's this thing in Australia called "Mania". It's a kids' magazine, for kids. It has some comics in it, but it's mostly just a bunch of loosely disguised advertorials for various kids' properties. Here's a great example of one for you... a little Transformers quiz.

"Yaks" is short for "Maniacs". IE: Mania readers. And now you know!

 If you want the answers to the quiz you'll just have to hit the 'read more', because I've blacked them out here! Just be aware that there's a little rant before the answers!

UK vs. USA #1: Make Sure It's Formatted

This is gunna be a big, long, rambling one folks. I wanna talk to you about the super interesting topic of comic book formats. So brace yourselves! Just a quick note up front that this article will basically be ignoring newspaper comic strips (and their reprints), and internet comics (and their reprints) just for simplicity's sake.

Can you guess which are the UK and which are the US comics?

THE BASICS
So let's talk about the essential difference between American comic books and British comic books. Not the stories or the characters. Not the themes, or style, or tone. Let's talk about the difference in format.

Hulk #178: The Story of Space Jesus.

That was exactly the apostle Mark's
reaction to the crucifixion  too.

So, I've had this old issue of the Hulk sitting in a pile of comics waiting to be read. When I finally read it I realised I would have to share it with you guys. The point of 80 Page Giant is for us contributors to share the stuff that we're reading (or thinking about) that really strikes us. And this sure struck me.

See, I'd long known that Jack Kirby's Him character had been re-imagined as Adam Warlock. I'd also long known that Adam Warlock was kind of a 'space Jesus' type of character. What I hadn't known before was how absolutely freaking literal that was.

So along came Gerry Conway and Tony Isabella to educate me, in Incredible Hulk #178. This issue... this issue... it's a retelling of Christ's crucifixion, starring Adam Warlock as Jesus.

No, I'm not kidding, man. This thing isn't even as subtle about this as a Narnia book. Take a look at that cover. Adam Warlock on a freaking cross. At least Aslan was put to death on a stone table, so you could PRETEND it wasn't a Christian parable.

So let's take a closer look at this thing, shall we?

Archie One-Page gags.

Oh Ethel. You're so ugly and repulsive!

So when I'm going through and scanning things from my Archie digests I often end up scanning extra pages, because of course when you lay out a digest on a scanner you end up doing two pages at a time. Sometimes you scan two pages you want, sometimes the second page is something else. Maybe it's ads, or the first page of a story I don't want -- and of course sometimes it's one-page strips that are self-contained jokes.

Rather than just delete these, I've been saving the one pagers. So how about I share a few of them today? Yay!

I'm honestly not positive of the genesis of these one-page gags. Some of them are clearly formatted for the single page -- others are clearly taken from Archie newspaper strips. I'll leave it to you (and to my own comments, let's be honest) to try and decide which is which.

As always there's no credits on these strips, so I can't really help you if you're trying to work out who the artist is on them. I can give you a best guess, but that's about it. So how about we get on with the show?

Gap Fillers: An Incredible Hulk #290 review.

Al Milgrom art.

When you're collecting comic books, especially when you're collecting back issues, you always end up with gaps. There's always one or two issues that escape you. Because of the serial nature of adventure comics, especially super hero comics, this means you end up with unfinished stories.

This is worse when you're younger and don't have a lot of income, or a lot of control over how you get your comics. You end up with stories you never seem to be able to finish. And inevitably the story is the conclusion of a whole bunch of important plot threads and you're left dangling.

Incredible Hulk #290 is one of those issues for me. I had a long run leading up to it, then a bunch of issues after it, but never #290 itself. It took me about 15 years to finally get #290. You can't imagine the anticipation I had when this issue finally arrived in my hands. Here it was, a story I hadn't read that was a conclusion to a long storyline I'd loved and read about 5 million times when I was a kid.

You've all been there. You know what happens next. You read the issue, telling yourself not to expect it to be the greatest thing ever and sure enough... it's not. Usually it's not BAD, it's just that this comic you've been anticipating for years is, well, just another issue in the series. It's not a massive, super special issue. It's not a classic, world-beating story. It's just another comic.

Incredible Hulk #290 is not just another comic.

Archie Metaphors: Kissing = Sex

Best guess at the artist? Dan DeCarlo

When reading Archie comics it's important to remember that they were written and drawn (for the most part) by a bunch of dirty old men.

They're comics aimed at pre-teens, with stories about teenagers, written by men in their 30s and 40s. As such there tends to be a surprising amount of layers to the stories. They can't, for example, show full-on sexual relationships in these comics. On the other hand, it would be pretty realistic for Archie, Betty, Veronica and the gang to be sexually active, right?

So Archie comics get around this using a really simple metaphoric formula.

KISSING = SEX.

Now as always (and as we discussed when talking about Jughead's sexuality) it's basically impossible to talk in absolutes about Archie comics. The degree to which kissing = sex therefore changes from story to story. In some stories kissing is a straight up substitute for sex. For example in the strip we're sharing today.

Good Political Cartoons: Giles

And yet England went on to win that world cup...

I know, I know. Surely political cartoons are those stupid things with big nosed versions of politicians and really stupid labels on everything so even the dumbest idiot can get the joke. They suck donkey's nuts right?

Well, they don't have to. Political cartooning, or perhaps more accurately, cartooning as social commentary, doesn't have to suck. In fact, social commentary is where cartooning and comics have their origin! It's magazines like Punch over in the UK that gave rise to the entire artform.

Which brings us to Giles.

Sabrina the Teenaged Aerobics Instructor

Sometimes you're reading a comic and one or two pages just... stand out for some strange reason.

Merry frickin' Christmas.

Sometimes you can't put your finger on exactly why they stand out... other times, yeah, you totally can.

That Hilarious Racism and Xenophobia in Old Comics!

I'm glad you can tell they're not Korean or Chinese, Bucky.

There's a kind of strange attitude that I've noticed when people are reading old comics that says, "Well, they're old comics, of COURSE they're like that!" Sometimes this attitude is levelled against the structure of the plots, the art, and sometimes it's levelled against the social values represented in those old comics.

Of course they're racist! It's old comics!

This attitude tends to render these comics camp -- we laugh at the racism and xenophobia represented because, well, they're old! When talking about comics from the Super Hero 'Golden Age' (we'll talk about why I think the term 'Golden Age of Comics' is bullshit at another time) this dismissive attitude becomes heightened

It's hilarious when Superman tells us to slap a Jap, because it was World War II and that sort of attitude was acceptable back then. Of course it was okay to say all Germans were bad, or all Italians, or all Japs. After all, we were at war, weren't we?

A little look at 1940s Wonder Woman

So lately I've been reading my friend Andrew Hobart's copy of Wonder Woman Chronicles #1. It reprints Wondie's Golden Age stories from her very first appearance onwards.

I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not a fan of Wonder Woman. This has definitely coloured my reading of these old... ahhh... classics. I'm far, far, too aware of... well... the fact that Wonder Woman is a bondage fantasy. I can't help but speculate on what it must have been like to read these stories as a kid in the 1940s, completely oblivious to the cliches and visuals of bondage. Fetish inducing probably.

At least according to some doctors.

Voyage to DEAAAATH!!!

I love the sound of that train!

Hey, just thought I'd share an old Werewolf story with you from a really old... Werewolf comic. Look these scans were laying around on my hard drive, dammit.

Okay okay, so this story is from issue 3 of  Weird Tales of Werewolves, an Australian comic book produced by Gredon, in... ahh... the 1970s. They're reprints of what appear to be Spanish comic stories. If you look at the first page right at the bottom it says, "Editorial Vilmar -- Barcelona -- the Illustrated".

More than that, I can't actually tell you at this point, the comic has no creator credits. But damn it's a rollickin' good story.

There were a tonne of these books put out in the 70s here in Australia. I'll be getting more of them, I'm sure. In the meanwhile, enjoy the voyage.


THE VOYAGE TO DEATH.

Dennis: Hates his dog, Has no neck.

This is from the 1968 Dennis the Menace (US) comic book "Dennis The Menace: Pet Parade". It was printed by Fawcett.

--Andrew S.
(Still doesn't explain why he has no goddamn neck.)

Jughead and Sexuality: The Brain Campaign.

I hate those damned menaces to romance!

If you've ever watched Chasing Amy -- and if you're a geek you probably have -- then you've seen that scene where a gay guy tries to convince a guy of ambiguous sexuality that Archie comics are gay. He chooses Jughead as the main thrust of his argument -- clearly Jughead is the dom and Archie is his bitch.

Okay, that's utter bull crap, and the movie even admits it's utter bullcrap. Archie is, at its heart, a story about straight sexual relationships. Highly disturbing straight sexual relationships a lot of the time. Except... there's Jughead.

Jughead is a self-avowed "woman-hater". He has no interest in girls whatsoever. So, what is his sexuality then? Is he gay? Is he straight, but he just hasn't discovered women yet? Well, honestly... answering that question fairly is nearly impossible to do with Archie comics. You see, Archie comics aren't really into continuity like super hero comics. Rather, Archie characters are like actors cast in different roles according to the needs of the story.

WHO THE HELL ARE -- ALPHA FLIGHT?

I bet any number of comic fans think they could answer this question right off the bat. Alpha Flight are Canada’s super hero team! Right?

Well, yes. That is technically true, but it is a very superficial answer to the question. Almost every super team tends to have something of a concept to it. The Fantastic Four are the first family of Marvel – adventurers and heroes, who act as a family. The Defenders are the non-team, a bunch of guys who do stuff as a team without ever formally being a team. The X-men are mutants who hate and fear a world that seeks to protect them… there’s concepts for every team.
 
These concepts are the root of the stories that are told about the team, and how much you like the concept drives how much you enjoy the team.

Alpha Flight’s concept is simple. They’re the most fucked-up bunch of misfits ever, trying to pretend to be a team. Or to put it another way – a bunch of dudes build a team and bad shit happens to the team.