R.I.P. Trina Robbins

(Communist dinner table panel from the adaptation of the 1927 novel "Red Love" by Alexandra Kollantai, serialized in Renegade Romance #1-2, 1987.)

by BK Munn

This Trina Robbins dinner table panel sums up every meal my wife and I ever share! R.I.P. Trina Robbins (1938-2024). The great feminist cartoonist and historian broke through into the pantheon with her underground classic It Ain't Me Babe and created the first comic featuring an "out" lesbian in "Sandy Comes Out" in Wimmen's Comix #1. She designed the character Vampirella and was the first woman to draw Wonder Woman for DC Comics. She was such a revolutionary she was actually featured in the first verse of Joni Mitchell's "Ladies of the Canyon." She was a fashion designer, an editor, a muse, a leader, and organizer. Trina herself was a tireless and groundbreaking researcher and comics historian, responsible for a seemingly endless series of history books that studied and popularized the careers of women in comics dating back to the 1800s. She was an amazing spirit and had a legendary life! Rest in Power, Trina!

As a preteen kid, I first encountered her through a page in Les Daniels' history book Comix (found in the Public Library) which reprinted a collaborative comic with her then-partner Kim Deitch announcing the birth of their daughter. One of Trina's panels on that page depicted a who's who of famous women superheroes, alongside Trina's own creation, the half-woman/half-cat Panthera, who tantalizingly went about topless. The first whole comics story I read was her adaptation of Sax Rohmer's "Dope" in the pages of Eclipse Monthly circa 1983. I've collected her comics ever since as well as her history books which have made an immeasurable impact on my understanding of comics history and my knowledge of women cartoonists, and one of the pillars of my own ongoing Comics Canon project. 

Comics in Film: Super Gal in "Ensign Pulver" (1964)

 

Comics in Film: Super Gal nose art in "Ensign Pulver" (1964).

by BK Munn

The character of Supergirl, the cousin of Superman, was first introduced in Action Comics #252 in May, 1959, but it is unknown if this image is intended as a reference to the comic book character or is just an ironic gender flip of Superman typical of the humour exhibited by the artists who painted plane fuselages during World War II. If an intended reference, the image is an anachronism, since Ensign Pulver is set in the 1940s. In the film, a sequel to the 1955 John Ford-directed film Mister Roberts, a planeload of nurses lands on a Pacific atoll and become wound up in the redemption arc of the title character, heroically helping him perform an important operation. (The sequel retains the same characters but replaces all the actors. Jack Lemmon won the Oscar for his portrayal of Ensign Pulver in the original, but he's replaced here by relative unknown Robert Walker Jr.) There was a comic book adaptation of Ensign Pulver, published by Dell in 1964, but I'm unsure if the "Super Gal" art was reproduced there.

The Best Records of 1982!

 

PEAK POST-PUNK!

by BK Munn

It's taken me over 40 years, but I've finally whittled down my list of the Best Albums of 1982!

As I wrote in my notes for 1986, the first one of these I attempted, this list comes with a number of caveats and blindspots, and I think I'm going to stick with the same quirky, personal format. So: this is a largely English-language, rock-oriented list reflecting my continued fetish for post-punk and garage rock sounds. There are a couple German records here, but that's about it. In part, this is a nostalgic list, but as usual most of the records here were totally unknown to me at the time. Some are new to me this week, but most have crossed my path at some point over the last four decades, and many I even own in vinyl format!

In 1982, I was only 12 but obsessed with not only Top 40 radio but also the synth pop and New Wave sounds coming out of Toronto's fm station CFNY.  I distinctly remember hearing the dj for Hamilton's CKOC introduce Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" for the first time. I was a year or two away from real teenage rebellion and the discovery of our local college radio station CFRU, but nevertheless I thought I was cool because I had discovered David Bowie and listened to Scary Monsters and the ChangesOne compilation incessantly (Let's Dance didn't come out until 1983, I think). My tastes have changed since those days, but some of the records I liked back then I still like, meaning I can still stand to listen to them without too many unpleasant associations.

This is not true for most of the big hits of the day. 1982 was the year of Michael Jackson's Thriller and despite it's continuing centrality to our culture and Western Civilization, I feel close to blowing my brains out whenever I hear the opening notes of any of the megahits from that album these days. I was pretty much burned out on that record by 1983, even as a kid. Ditto for most of the 1982 Top 40. 

1982 was a year that funk and hip-hop started to register with white people, post-Disco, but my list has very little of either. I decided to eliminate jazz from the list as well, even though there are excellent records from giants like Ornette Coleman, Nina Simone, and Alice Coltrane that year, as well as jazz-inflected things like Rip Rig and Panic, and Indian and African stuff like Rupa and Manu Dibango that interest me. No soundtracks on this list either, even though Morricone (The Thing) and Vangelis (the amazing Blade Runner soundtrack) were out there (David Lynch released his soundtrack for 1977's Eraserhead in 1982 as well). 

I'm pretty proud of my curation of the first 30 or so records on this list, but to be honest, the rest of the list is more or less a random assemblage, with not much thought given to rankings. I have another 20 or so records that I could easily substitute for any 20 of the records in the bottom 52.  Maybe I'll post those separately. For now I'm sticking to the gimmick of matching the number of slots with the year, so I'm limited here to 82 in total. I'm sure I've missed something! Let me know!

1. The Fall, Hex Education Hour
2. Lilliput, Lillput
3. Kate Bush, The Dreaming
4. English Beat, Special Beat Service
5. Gang of Four, Songs of the Free and Another Day/Another Dollar
6. Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, The Message 
7. Trio, Trio aka The Album/Da Da Da
8. REM, Chronic Town
9. Daniel Johnston, Don’t Be Scared
10. Prince, 1999
11. Cocteau Twins, Garland
12. Sonic Youth, Sonic Youth
13. The Clean, Great Sounds Great, Good Sounds Good, So-so Sounds So-so, Bad Sounds Bad, Rotten Sounds Rotten
14. Gun Club, Miami
15. The Clash, Combat Rock
16. The Cure, Pornography
17. Blue Orchids, The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain) 
18. Siouxsie And The Banshees, A Kiss In The Dreamhouse
19. Dead Kennedys, Plastic Surgery Disasters
20. Waitresses, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful
21. Simple Minds, New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
22. X, Under the Big Black Sun
23. Talking Heads, The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
24. Chic, Tongue in Chic
25. TV Personalities, Mummy Your Not Watching Me/They Could Have Been Bigger than the Beatles
26. The Birthday Party, Junkyard
27. Wall of Voodoo, Call of the West
28. Fleshtones, Roman Gods
29. Judy Nylon and Crucial, Pal Judy
30. Laurie Anderson, Big Science
31. XTC, English Settlement
32. Familie Hesselbach, Familie Hesselbach
33. Lee "Scratch" Perry and the Majestics, Mystic Miracle Star
34. Tom Verlaine, Words from the Front
35. Nightingales, Pigs on Purpose
36. Misfits, Walk Among Us
37. Nurse With Wound, Homotopy to Marie 
38. John Cooper Clarke, Zip Style Method
39. Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, D.T.K. (Live At The Speakeasy)
40. The Jam, The Gift
41. Marine Girls, Beach Party
42. The Sound, All Fall Down
43. Pere Ubu, Song of the Bailing Man
44. Romeo Void, Benefactor
45. D.O.A., War on 45
46. Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast
47. Eddy Grant, Killer on the Rampage
48. Tall Dwarfs, Louis Likes His Daily Dip
49. Bauhaus, The Sky's Gone Out/Press The Eject and Give Me the Tape
50. Cleaners from Venus, Midnight Cleaners/On Any Normal Monday
51. George Clinton, Computer Games
52. The Psychedelic Furs, Forever Now
53. African Head Charge, Environmental Studies
54. Material, One Down
55. Duran Duran, Rio
56. Culture Club, Kissing to Be Clever
57. Bad Brains, Bad Brains
58. The Descendents, Milo Goes to College
59. Mission of Burma, Vs.
60. Brian Eno, Ambient 4: On Land
61. Neil Young, Trans
62. Thomas Dolby, The Golden Age Of Wireless/She Blinded Me With Science
63. Lou Reed, The Blue Mask
64. Flipper, Album Generic Flipper
65. King Sunny Adé and His African Beats, Juju Music
66. Yazoo, Upstairs at Eric’s
67. Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska
68. Grace Jones, Living My Life
69. Madness, The Rise and Fall
70. Rick James, Throwin Down
71. Go-Go’s, Vacation
72. Devo, Oh No! It’s Devo
73. Nina Hagen, NunSexMonkRock
74. Motorhead, Iron Fist
75. Fear, The Record
76. Men Without Hats, Rhythm of Youth
77. Peter Gabriel, Security
78. Bow Wow Wow, I Want Candy
79. Hunters and Collectors, s/t
80. Strange Advance, World’s Away
81. Dream Syndicate, The Days Of Wine And Roses
82. A Flock of Seagulls, s/t

SETH'S POSTCARDS

 

Kara and I had fun seeing the new show of Seth art at the RICA Gallery here in Guelph last night. We also hung out with some other Seth fans and art buyers after the preview/launch and I was really amazed at the diverse group of people who are into his work. Many have come to him through his "non-comics" paintings and sculptures and his gallery agent Renann Isaacs should take a lot of the credit for turning these folks on to the work and hustling to develop a strong local market (although there were collectors from New York and Toronto on hand and I suspect some long-distance/overseas sales as well). I talked to people who are not comics nerds and who couldn't tell an issue of The Comics Journal from Wizard Magazine from Bubbles (in one discussion about contemporary Canadian figurative painters working in a realist style like Kent Monkman and Atilla Lukacs, the idea of studio assistants came up which led to a discussion of comic book assembly-line production techniques, ghost artists, and manga studios, and I had to bite my tongue a bit when the fellow I was talking to said something like, "Is that how Stan Lee drew his comics?"). Wisely, Renann and Seth created a show of small pictures, priced to sell. They are fun little things, very Seth-y, but as the artist admitted, not much thought went into the titles or artist statement (I'm attaching the local news article for some choice Seth quotes). Which is all to say, a good time was had by all. I think the entire show is going to sell out: most of the paintings were sold by the second night, and the show runs until December 23. I didn't take any pictures, so I'm stealing the photos from Renann's Facebook feed for those who aren't friends with her.

Seth and Renann Isaacs (photo credit: Margaret Langton)

Graphic Novel Review: Palookaville #24

Palookaville #24

by Seth
(D&Q, 2023)
112 pages, Hardcover

review by BK Munn

This latest issue of the semi-annual hardcover version of Seth's long-running comic is chockfull of value for money: the fourth chapter of his teenage memoir, a selection of five gorgeous themed short stories from his sketchbook, and a photo essay section devoted to the making of Luc Chamberland's film of "The Apology of Albert Batch," a puppet show created by Seth, included as a dvd with this issue.

DAVE SIM ON KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD

Dave Sim writing in CANAR #1, 1972:

"KIRBY VIEW --This is to serve as a kind of response to Rick Seiler's Kirby 'opinionations' in this same issue.

I maintain that Kirby has little or no talent. His writing disgusts me even more than the work of early Gerry Conway. His creations seem to be of less than human quality. He is at his best designing a fight sequence, and he knows it. Thus, most of his books become little more than twenty odd pages of villains getting their heads caved in while the hero rants and raves over his cause with no emotion at all. Kirby's characters never seem to come alive. One cannot picture ever seeing an human qualities in Orion. And don't mistake human qualities for qualities found in other Kirby creations (Black Bolt, Silver Surfer, etc.) for they are equally monotonous in their steadfast gazes and intent close-mouthed convictions.

The Fourth World 'epics' failed for one reason. None of the books had anything that could rationally be called a uniting force. What they amounted to was a mish-mash of characters who exist for battle, use the Earth as a battleground and seldom say more tha two words without a) punching b) killing c) disintegrating an opponent who is equally mute. 

Now for some conclusions on this topic. Why do these characters exist? They are Kirby creations and it is a well-known fact that the only way to maintain Jack Kirby as a staff artist is to cater to his wants. One of these wants is total freedom to change, distort, or completely destroy anything in the panel art at DC. He changed Superman into something less than he should be, totally demolished anything it took DC thirty years to build Jimmy Olsen into ... and left both characters when he was through with them. This is somewhat reminiscent of ushering a spoiled child into a room of antique toys, permitting him to smash them at will and guiding him to another room. 

Now, the almighty King demands that he be granted a team of artists at his California headquarters that he might continue his Fourth World Farce. Whom would he take? Neal Adams? Jim Aparo? Joe Kubert? Certainly sacrificing these gentlemen to the pseudo science fiction slop of the Fourth World means nothing ... if the King is satiated by it. "

___

*Dave Sim writing as a 16-year-old fanboy for his friend John Balge's fanzine Comic Art News and Reviews. This early column proves that Sim has always had bad taste and his head up his ass. 

Graphic Novel Review: Abysmalation by Josh Bayer

 

Abysmalation

by Josh Bayer

(Birdcage Bottom, 2022)

148pgs

review by BK Munn

Fantastic collection of fugitive pieces by this punk cartoonist includes the very funny "Bloggers" series of strips, some autobiographical shorts and playful explorations of comics history, and the epic centrepiece "I'm Drawing Garfield." It's a showcase for Bayer's expressive, gestural, beautifully "messy" cartooning; an intense style with a radical personal approach to everything from page design, to figure drawing, to lettering. Recommended!

Phyllis Wright, 1930-2023

 

by BK Munn

Sad news today as we learn that Phyllis Wright died July 9 after a stroke and a short stay in palliative care at Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington, Ontario. Phyllis was the model for the mother in "Doug Wright's Family," the long-running Canadian comic strip drawn by her first husband Doug Wright, and was instrumental in the founding of the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning. She was a continual and joyful presence at the annual awards ceremonies held in Toronto since 2004.

Phyllis and Doug had three boys, Bill, Jim, and Ken, who all became the models for the boys in the comic strip, which ran from 1948 to 1980. As depicted by Doug, Phyllis was a loving but exasperated suburban housewife, with a stylish pixie haircut and often clad in slacks or mod skirt ensembles. Through her association with the Wright Awards, Phyllis was a living link to the world depicted in the comic strip, generous with her support and time, and generous in sharing her family's memories and archive of artwork and photos, some of which became source material for the massive two-volume Collected Doug Wright compiled by the cartoonist Seth and writer Brad Mackay.

After Doug Wright's death in 1983, Phyllis remarried, to Derek Thomas (d. 1998), greatly expanding the size of her family.

Cremation and a private interment at Greenwood Cemetery happened earlier this month. There will be a memorial service July 31 at 11am at Port Nelson United Church.

_____

Hamilton Spectaor Obituary

Close Shaves in the Comics, Part 2: Storm Gets a Mohawk!

 by BK Munn

Now it can be told: the terrifying tale of talcum, tufts, and trimming that is shaving in the comics!

Let's talk about some of the most famous and important shaves in the history of comics.

2. Uncanny X-Men #173. Storm gets a mohawk!

This was the shave that shook all mutantkind! 

Never had a shave had such shocking ramifications for a character in a superhero comic, let alone a woman character! 

Storm was a groundbreaking character: one of the first prominent characters of African descent in U.S. comics, and one of the most powerful woman characters in the Marvel Universe. Storm was born Ororo Munroe, the daughter of a Kenyan princess and an African-American photographer, and raised on the streets of Harlem and Cairo, Egypt before assuming the mantle of an African weather goddess when her mutant powers manifested. When she is first introduced in comic books, in Giant Size X-Men #1, created by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum, she is depicted as serene royalty. Her superhero costume includes a cape, and her trademark regal hairstyle is a mane of shockingly white, long, flowing hair, accessorized with a crown-like tiara. Storm quickly established herself as one of the most powerful X-Men as well as a gentle voice of reason, a leader, a teacher, and a mentor to student mutants at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, the secret headquarters of The X-Men. Her beauty, highlighted by the contrast between her black skin and white hair, set her apart from the other, decidedly less-glamorous mutants. 

But all this changed in 1983's X-Men #173, "To Have and Have Not!"

After spending a week in Japan in the company of Wolverine's crazy mutant ninja girlfriend Yukio, Ororo finds herself revelling in the down-and-dirty violence that is Yukio's specialty. After using a lightning bolt to knock out a Yakuza thug, Storm notes, "I have never used my powers to deliberately inflict pain." She concludes, "This madness of yours has infected me ---I welcome it!"

Cut to a week later, and the arrival of the rest of the X-Men for Wolverine's wedding. Storm makes one of the most dramatic reveals in X-Men history, debuting her all-leather street punk uniform, topped off by a spectacular feathery mohawk hairstyle. Her "new look" is as shocking as a lightning bolt, electrifying her colleagues, and provoking an emotional response.

“Your clothes! Your…hair! What have you done?!” gasps young Kitty Pryde, while Professor Xavier speculates privately whether the change is “indicative of a deeper, more serious metamorphosis.”

The new look does indeed prove to be indicative of big changes in Storm's character. In the issues that follow, she becomes more calculating, aggressive and self-assured, winning a knife-fight against the Morlock leader Callisto and becoming leader of the X-Men even after losing her powers. Originally intended as a joke by the series artist Paul Smith, writer Chris Claremont quickly seized on the implications of the punk look for the character's development.

The change had an effect on the readership as well, galvanizing interest and making Storm a fan favourite. Through the act of shaving most of her head, Storm became a comic book style icon, her punk look shaking up the staid world of superhero comics and making radical change one of the hallmarks of Reagan 80s Marvel, heralding the new wave of team shake-ups, costume and character redesigns, and universe-rattling crises and secret wars. Her leather uniform also created a template for more "realistic" superhero costuming, especially in film design.

Unknown Canadian Cartoonist: Joe Cushner

by BK Munn 

Unknown Canadian Cartoonists: Joe Cushner

My brother, who lives in B.C., sent me these images from an exhibit at the VISAC Gallery in Trail. The artist Joe Cushner worked for the Cominco Smelter doing safety posters and cartoons.

The Art of Health and Safety:

Joe Cushner, Cominco Staff Artist (1950s – 70s)

https://www.visacgallery.com/welcome-to-visac

https://www.rosslandmuseum.ca/cominco

SPLIT-FACE vs. TWO-FACE: A TALE OF TWO VILLAINS FROM BATMAN AND DICK TRACY

Just saw the first Dick Tracy movie (1945) on TCM. The villain is Split-Face, played by the great Mike Mazurki. He's a new creation for the movie, not from the comic strip, created by the screenwriter Eric Taylor, author of many B-movie crime pictures. The Batman villain Two-Face debuted in 1942. In a shocking twist, it looks like Dick Tracy is taking a page from Batman. In another shocking twist, Bob Kane is actually credited with his creation (although Bill Finger of course wrote the first appearance in Detective Comics #66). In a twist that will surprise nobody, Kane stole the idea for Two-Face from this poster for the 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Spencer Tracy

THE FIRST COMICS ACADEMIC IN FILM? SORRELL BOOKE IN "BYE BYE BRAVERMAN"

by BK MUNN

Is this the first comics academic in film? Sorrell Booke as Holly Levine in "Bye Bye Braverman" (1968, d. Sidney Lumet). In the film, about four writers trying to find their friend's funeral in Brooklyn, Holly announces that he will soon be teaching a course on pop culture, called "From Little Nemo to L'il Abner". This news invites incredulity from his fellow intellectuals, who proceed to quiz him on his comic strip knowledge, asking trivia questions about Little Annie Rooney, Winnie Winkle, The Gumps, Orphan Annie, and Don Winslow of the Navy. Holly passes with flying colours, only getting hung up on the name of the dunce character in The Rinkydinks gang (Denny Dimwit). The film has many other comics references, including mentions of Dick Tracy, Skeezix, Blondie, and Bringing Up Father. Holly has a pop art painting of The Phantom in his apartment, and a Sunday of Irwin Hasen's Dondi is glimpsed at one point. It's a charming comedy in the form of a Joycean odyssey, based on the book "To An Early Grave" by Wallace Markfield (aka "The James Joyce of Brighton Beach").

In real life, Sorrell Booke (1930-1994) was a multilingual polymath, known for his character roles in hundreds of films and television shows. Ironically, he is best known for playing the villainous Boss Hogg on "The Dukes of Hazzard" tv series from 1979 to 1985.

I can't think of many other comics academics in film. Although the study of comic books is mentioned in the novel White Noise, I don't think this was carried over to the recent adaptation. Are there any others?

WEDNESDAY, SEASON ONE

WEDNESDAY, SEASON 1 (2022)

review by BK MUNN

When I was a kid, like everybody I watched reruns of The Addams Family on tv. In retrospect, it’s amazing that the show existed at all, a family sitcom based on some macabre, downright antisocial and perverse cartoons printed in the high-toned New Yorker magazine, but in the context of the times it doesn’t seem out of place. The post-Kennedy, post-Cuban Missile crisis 1960s was a time of high-concept tv shows with increasingly fantastical premises (and The Munsters premiered at the same time, for Christ’s sake). As a show, it still holds up as a goofy, only partly moronic example of 60s culture. They made some good logical decisions, shoe-horning Charles Addams’ disconnected cartoons into a network format, essentially bowdlerizing it for a mainstream audience (not that The New Yorker isn’t mainstream, but you know what I mean). It’s no smarter than Gilligan’s Island or Hogan’s Heroes, and it’s not without its own boring, repetitive schticks and annoying tics, but it lucked out with a few things, like a catchy theme song, great casting, and some creative characterizations that paid off. And for better or for worse, sixty years later the tv show is still the basis for a massive pop culture enterprise. 

As an adult I think of the work of Charles Addams, including the roughly 150 cartoons and drawings he did that can be at least tangentially identified as “Addams Family” cartoons, as something like a holy text, my Bible or Shakespeare, and in many ways the epitome of comics art. I have to admit I’m a bit snobbish about them, and hold them close to my heart (I’m sure Addams was much less precious and, like Charles Schulz, was happy to cash any checks for prostituting his creations). These days, I think of the tv shows and movies as, at best, easily-forgettable aspects of the Addams legacy and, at worst, as something like a hideous boil on the face of the Mona Lisa (maybe like something you’d find in the Addams Family portrait gallery?). That being said, I’m still able to think about the original drawings and their ancillary spinoffs as separate things, and have even watched parts of the movie franchises over the years with a clean conscience (as a kid I also liked the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning animated show!). 

Like all pop-culture properties, The Addams Family has been seized on as something endlessly franchise-able, to be mined and re-imagined and transformed into a myriad of formats and genres; a universe (dare I say multiverse?) unto itself. Our modern sophisticated tastes demand more than some Boomer artifact, and so we have this new Wednesday show, which takes one of the least-developed, most projected-upon, parts of the universe, essentially a blank slate, and posits her as a teen heroine in a sort of Harry Potter meets Nancy Drew milieu, as a goth Hermione, if you will, in one of these now stereotypical fantasy private schools. The slow addition of *actual* supernatural aspects to the "mythos", above and beyond Addams’ bedrock surrealism, placed front and center, is the novelty here, giving some kind of superpowers to all members of the clan, and special precognitive witchiness to both Morticia and Wednesday, etc. (The full scale “magic-ization” I think very clearly takes away from what made the original concepts unique, but whatever.)  I turned off most of my grumpy critical nitpicking and enjoyed this (almost too long) short series. The casting was mostly good, the plots not too moronic (gleefully full of plot-holes, lacunae, and “traveling at the speed of plot” tv tropes), and overall those things I expected to dislike (dancing to The Cramps, Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester) instead were almost charming. It’s for kids but I’m adult enough to admit I’m basically a big baby and we live in an infantile society. Tim Burton, who has been making shit like this his entire career, had a hand in production and development, and directs half the episodes (the poster says this conglomeration of cliches and half-assed plots comes "from the imagination of Tim Burton" which is quite the self-own but also, which part?), and I can’t really say I hate it.