Author: Mike Gold

The Last Word, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • November 3, 2008

Norman Mingo’s iconic image of Alfred E. Neuman was first used by Mad Magazine back in 1956 as comment upon the Eisenhower / Stevenson election or, more to the point, in parody of the typical Time magazine cover of its time. Mingo’s Alf is still in use to this day; as is the struggle between the donkey and elephant also depicted on that cover.

We’ve had presidents and presidential elections in comics since the staple was first applied to cheap newsprint. Recently we’ve had Lex Luthor as president in the DC universe, and Stephen Colbert running for the same job in the Marvel universe. The president is one of the most important of the American icons, perhaps even moreso than Alfred E. Neuman.

Tomorrow is Election Day, and you will be asked to pick from at least two clear and distinctive voices. Whichever candidate wins, his impact on our future will be immense. Your voice is needed. As an American citizen, voting is your highest obligation.

I don’t care who you vote for (well, actually, I do, but that’s not the point right now), as long as you make your voice heard. You might think your state is already committed to one candidate or another. History shows us you are wrong. You might think your one vote doesn’t matter. History shows us you are wrong.

Even if your candidate has no chance of winning, make your voice heard. For example, let’s say you are a Libertarian interested in voting for Bob Barr. You probably think he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. You would probably be right. But if the Libertarian Party gets noticeable support at the polls, even 5% of the popular vote in your state, we will have taken a significant step towards freeing ourselves from the two party system that severely limits our choice and our future.

You might think all of the candidates are idiots; that none of them deserves your support. Fine. Make your voice heard. Vote for the person you think best represents your point of view, even if that’s a write-in. You might think Bun E. Carlos would be the best person for the job (he’s my #2 choice); fine. Make your voice heard. (more…)

Growing Out Of Comics, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • October 27, 2008

It was the very end of summer, I had just turned 11, and – heaven help me – I was just beginning to tire of comic books.

Not that I was considering getting that four-color monkey off of my back. My enthusiasm was waning. The Superman books were beginning to get silly, the Batman titles had already become silly, and Julie Schwartz’s books like The Flash and Green Lantern were beginning to feel repetitious. I had exceeded the five-year point in my comic book reading life, that moment when the publishers felt you were on your way out, trading comics for sports, girls, and/or life. Being a precocious reader, I was at that portal at an age somewhat younger than the norm, but there was no doubt about it, comics weren’t quite as exciting to me as they had been.

At that time, DC had the market on super-hero titles lock, stock and barrel. Few new titles were launched; indeed, DC’s two debut books – Showcase and The Brave and the Bold – often recycled previous unsuccessful attempts like Cave Carson: Inside Earth and the original Suicide Squad to give them another shot at the marketplace. Each run generally consisted of three issues, so at best there would be four debuts each year, and most of those (like Cave Carson and Suicide Squad) were not of the super-hero genre. Today, of course, we get four such debuts a week.

So when it came time to drive my sister to college, my father did something unique. He stopped at a drug store – one of those places that actually had a massive wooden rack plus two comics spinner racks exclusively dedicated to comic books – and told me to pick out a few for the ride, in the hope that I would not be a bother. He then dashed across the street to pick up a dozen bagels at Kaufman’s, the original one on Montrose and Kedzie in Chicago. They boasted the best bagels in the country, and they were right.

When he returned to the drug store, I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. I had read each and every superhero title in the vast expanse of rack space. Even Lois Lane.  Even the war comics, about which I was ambivalent at best, although I was not ambivalent about Joe Kubert’s art. (more…)

Respect, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • October 20, 2008

R-E-S-P-E-C-T / Find out what it means to me / R-E-S-P-E-C-T / Take care, TCB

When Otis Redding wrote that song back in 1965, I doubt he could foresee its impact on our culture. Everybody related to its sentiments, and today it’s common do see the word used as a major bone of contention in virtually all types of disputes, from labor negotiations to street gang antics. It makes sense. We all want to be respected for who we are and what we do.

Over the past couple years the comic book medium has started to receive its proper respect – but comic book fans have not. Matt Groening’s Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons is breathtakingly clever, but we forget that the guy is also a member of Mensa. I only know a few comic book fans that actually look like CBG, myself included, but a good many of those were Mensa members. One even dated Marilu Henner; sadly, that wasn’t me.

Mensa members deserve respect as well. They’re nerds; they don’t get respect. The only nerds that get respect are rich computer wizards, with the emphasis on rich. Wealth gets respect, and therefore I assume there’s a lot less respect going around this month than there was last month.

That shrine to our popular culture, the San Diego Comic-Con, is astonishingly successful. It pumps millions and millions of dollars into the local economy – a sum further enhanced by the several successful comic book publishers in the area – yet San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders felt it save to piss all over the comic fans last year. “We’ve put up with the superheroes and now we’re on to the people with actual talent,” Mayor Ungrateful Jerk said. What an ass. I guess he knew the Comic-Con was locked into a contract for several more years. (more…)

Spinner Rack Blues, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • October 13, 2008

“Ah, you kids today, you’ve got it easy.”

I’m sure over the past several million years that line started more lectures than all the speed freak professors at all the Ivy League schools combined. It also inspired more than a few comedy routines, too, including a classic from Monty Python. But when it comes to comics, you kids today, you’ve got it easy – if you’re lucky enough to live within travelling distance of a friendly neighborhood comic book store.

For the first 40 years of this medium’s history (much longer for Archie Comics), comic book sales were dependent upon spinner racks like the one pictured above. They appeared at local candy stores, drug stores, toy stores, newsstands, train and bus stations, and even some grocery stores. They were low-profit, high-labor efforts that gave parents some place to park the kiddies while they were buying cigarettes and Sal Hepatica.

As comics fans, we rarely had any idea when new issues would appear and we hardly ever knew when brand-new titles would pop up.  A handful would be advertised within the comics themselves, but the on sale date wasn’t necessarily accurate. Distributors received the books two to three weeks prior to release date, and sometimes would pass some of them along early if there was space on the truck. Or if there wasn’t, sometimes not at all. Some stores never received books from certain publishers: Harvey and Charlton were particularly difficult to find in my neighborhood.

But for the dedicated comic book collector, it was a way of life. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I’d be at the drug store across from my grammar school with my lunch money in hand. Every weekend, my friends and I would walk one mile down Chicago’s Devon Avenue from Kedzie to Western, stopping at seven different stores that carried comics. Oh we did a lot of other, more annoying stuff as well, but we never passed a spinner rack up. (more…)

Review: ‘Monty Python’s Tunisian Holiday’

51hrrisu-nl-sl500-aa2401-3018019Well as careers go, here’s a good one. Start off writing a fanzine and wind up working with and for Del Close and Monty Python and, specifically, John Cleese. Then you get to write all kinds of books about your labors.

Long-time comics journalist and frequent ComicMix commenter Kim Howard Johnson has a new book out called Monty Python’s Tunisian Holiday. It’s a misnomer; Monty Python was in Tunisia to work. They were making a movie. Monty [[[Python’s Life of Brian]]], to be exact. But few would buy a book called [[[Kim Howard Johnson’s Tunisian Holiday]]] unless it had a lot of sex in it, so the title choice is obvious. So are the contents: it’s Howard’s account of his time with the Pythons in Tunisia filming [[[The Life of Brian]]] and touches on his time on-stage with the group at the famed Hollywood Bowl concerts (Howard’s a professional, trained by no less than Del Close).

This is less of a companion volume to his [[[The First 200 Years of Monty Python]]],[[[ And Now For Something Completely Trivial]]],[[[ Life Before (and After) Monty Python]]], and [[[The First 280 Years of Monty Python]]] than it is Howard’s story chronicling his experiences as both a performer in the movie and a journalist covering the shoot. As such, it’s more of a companion volume to Michael Palin’s recently released autobiography Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years (I highly recommend the audiobook version, read by Palin). It’s witty, it’s thorough, and if you’re a Python fan or a movie nut, it’s completely vital. 

By the way, Howard’s got prefaces from Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and his former boss and collaborator ([[[Superman: True Brit]]]), John Cleese. It’s nice to know people.

O.K. Cool, Howard. Great job. Now go do that biography of the Bonzo Dog Band I’ve been wanting so desperately.  Ummm… after you finish that [[[Munden’s Bar]]] story you’re doing with…

Imitation Bizarros? by Mike Gold

  • News
  • October 6, 2008

Many years ago my dear friend, mystery novelist Elaine Viets, took a look at the growth rate and postulated that by, well, roughly now virtually every American would be an Elvis imitator.

Luckily, we came to our senses. Or maybe not. Either way, I love logic.

Another dear friend, the late Bill Martin, would go crazy reading Bizarro stories because of their lack of internal consistency. That’s why I loved Bill; he would actually think of such a thing. But damn it, he died too soon. Had he lived he would see that we are coming to a world not unlike that of the Bizarros, but with a day-to-day internal consistency.

For example, last week I pontificated upon the impact of our rapidly deteriorating economy upon the comics and popular culture community. It was absolutely brilliant; you should re-read it. As it was posted at 6:46 AM Central time (yeah – we’re out east; don’t ask!) I wrote the column before the big vote in Congress. The one that was voted down. People felt a $700,000,000,000.00 bail out was too expensive. OK, fine. I can dig that. Later that day, the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped 777 points. I love symmetry.

People freaked. Damn! We’ve got to put a stop to that! How can we get that fixed? I know! Let’s add some pork to the bill – spread some additional loot around and buy us the needed votes! So within five days a $700,000,000,000.00 bill that was too expensive evolved into an $840,000,000,000.00 bill that was just right! It was so well-greased that the bill was actually printed before passage and given to Still-President Bush for signing at the appropriate time.

This, folks, is Bizarro logic. And it prevails.

By the way, did the stock market react in gratitude for each and every American chipping in about $3000 to pay for this bill? Nope; the market dropped another 157 points.

I ask you this. Would a Bizarro-Elvis imitator have to be, well, the real Elvis? Don’t think about it; check and see who just bought your bank. Just accept the prevailing Bizarro logic. As if you have any choice.

In the words of the great, great man: “Me am not scared at all.”

Hello.
 

Mike Gold is editor-in-chief of ComicMix.  

Review: ‘Flash Gordon’ #1

Full disclosure: I had edited a [[[Flash Gordon]]] comics series at one point in my life. It was the third greatest nightmare in my professional life. Not the part about working with the talented and understanding Dan Jurgens; Dan’s a class act and a fine storyteller. No, working with King Features Syndicate was akin to Sisyphus’s task, except the big rock was a huge boulder of shit and pushing it up that mountain happened in the dead of the hottest summer in the innermost circle of hell. And I’ve lightened up on this over the years, too. And so, on with the show.

There may be no greater icon in comic strip history than Flash Gordon. Sorry, [[[Buck Rogers]]]. You came first but Flash had better art and story, and a much, much better villain. Creator/artist Alex Raymond is generally regarded as the greatest craftsman in the field; so great, in fact, that after Dave Sim recovered from producing 300 consecutive issues of [[[Cerebus]]], he started up on a series called [[[Glamourpuss]]] that, oddly, is all about Raymond’s work.

Flash was the subject of what is also generally regarding as the three greatest movie serials ever made due, in no small part, to the performance of actor Charles Middleton as Ming The Merciless. And he had all the other media tie-ins: a radio series starring Gale Gordon (yep; Lucille Ball’s foil), a teevee series staring future Doc Savage model Steve Holland and a teevee series on Sci-Fi last year that was completely unwatchable, various animated series, a movie feature and another one in pre-production and numerous comic books by people including Archie Goodwin, Al Williamson, Reed Crandall, and Wally Wood, and licensed items. When Raymond went off to war, he was replaced by a series of artists nearly equal to him in talent: Austin Briggs, Mac Raboy (my favorite), and Dan Barry.

There’s a reason why Flash Gordon attracted such top-rank talent. Sadly, that’s also the same reason why Flash Gordon is an icon and no longer active in our contemporary entertainment: nostalgia. Flash Gordon was a product of his times, a wondrous visionary made irrelevant by real-life heroes such as Laika the dog, the first living being to orbit the Earth, and Yuri Gagaran, the first human being to orbit the Earth. Only Yuri returned alive, but I digress.

Science fiction was rocked to its core. It took talent like Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, and Gene Roddenberry to re-purpose the genre, to focus more on the social aspects of the genre and extend those concepts out into the future. If you’re going to make Flash Gordon work in the 21st century – or the last four decades of the 20th, for that matter, you’ve got to distill the concept down to its essence and rebuild according to the mentality of our time.

(more…)

Oblivion, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • September 29, 2008

So we’re headed straight into another 1930s-style depression, or so our politicians and the media would have us believe. Maybe that’s true, although the attempted cure – the socialization of our investment bankers and the insurance industry – just might work. It’s the perfect solution in the Age of Irony: our neocon president nationalizing the very companies that control so much of our economy. Franklin Roosevelt must be rolling over in his grave.

But the real question that concerns us is – how might this affect us as comics and popular culture enthusiasts?

First, I’ll address the most obvious. If you lose your job, you will have less discretionary income and, despite our self-image, comics and movies and action figures are more discretionary than the rent, electricity and food. Even if you’re 45 years old and you live in your mother’s basement, if she’s living off of an annuity and her insurance company goes blooie, you might be cutting back on those X-Men titles.

If enough people find themselves in that position, the friendly neighborhood comics shop will go blooie as well. If enough comics shops go down, the smaller publishers (the “back of the catalog” people) will see retailers order their wares more conservatively than they did before. Some publishers will vaporize. It’ll certainly be tougher for creators to sell those more interesting yet less commercial projects.

Movies… well, that’s another matter. Movies have this rep for surviving the 30s Great Depression, but only among those who aren’t aware how many movie studios got sold, went bankrupt, or almost went bankrupt at the time. Today’s movie-going experience is a lot more expensive than it was for our grandparents. Even in constant dollars, $10.00 tickets are a lot more than 25¢ tickets… and our grandparents didn’t have to spend as much (relatively speaking) on popcorn and soda. More significant, most were able to walk to their local movie house. Today, we have to drive. Even the low, low price of $3.50 a gallon would crank the entire movie going experience up to $50.00 for a couple; more, with dinner. A movie date will cost you a cool hundred.

Television is no longer free. Sure, only a few people will need to get those digital adaptors for their rabbit-ears this February, but most of the rest of us get our fix from cable or satellite (or, in the case of my bestest friend, both cable and satellite). If food, rent, gasoline and utilities cost a family of four two grand a month or more and either one of the breadwinners is no longer winning bread, those premium channel packages are going to look real expensive.

Comics retailers order their stuff from Diamond on a non-returnable basis and, literally, bet the rent each month on their order form. They will have to be even more conservative. They’ve already been ordering what they know will sell; now they have to factor in the fear factor: how many of their regulars will lose their jobs, how many will be so afraid of losing their jobs that they’ll make immediate cut-backs in their purchases? I already said the “smaller” publishers would suffer; so would those companies that manufacture licensed material – action figures, posters, tie-in apparel, (more…)

I’ve Done Paul McCartney Wrong, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • September 22, 2008

Back in my DC Comics days, I was sitting in my office pretending to work when Mark Waid stuck his head in. “Hey, do you know when Paul McCartney wrote ‘Silly Love Songs?’” he asked.

“Pretty much his whole damn life,” I replied without looking up.

That about summed up my feelings about Paul McCartney. I was a John Lennon guy, although I’ve come around to really appreciating George Harrison’s stuff even more. He spoke softly but carried a big stick. “Taxman,” “Piggies…” great stuff.

I’ve had cause to reflect recently, and I think I’ve done Mr. McCartney wrong. He did this great song called “Give Ireland Back To The Irish,” which took a stand on the England / Ireland situation that one might expect from a guy named Mc-anything. And the BBC, owned by the British government, promptly banned it. So did Radio Luxembourg and ITV, effectively removing it from all venues of British broadcasting. His record label, EMI, said they wouldn’t release it. They wanted safe little silly love songs that said nothing and inspired no one but the vapid.

McCartney followed “Give Ireland Back To The Irish” with a reggae version of “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” It got lots of airplay.

So it is with this community. Comics creators used to work out of their need to earn a living. The pulps were dying, they couldn’t get work as illustrators (particularly if their last name sounded Jewish), newspapers started their half-century of death throes by slowly dropping continuity comic strips, the type that bring the readers back the next day to find out what happened. Writers and artists like to eat, sleep and reproduce, and therefore must earn a living. It was tough, particularly during the 50s when their efforts were equated with those of child molesters. Not to say that their heart wasn’t in their work; often it was, with some of the creators.

Today, creators have greater luxury. They have more options; they have a wider range of creative opportunities. They can work from the heart and pay the rent at the same time. Few will get rich, but, hey, that’s show business.

So when I fall across what, at first, might seem like a truly stupid idea for a comic book story, these days I think about all those silly love songs I so callously dismissed. We have a wide range of creative fare out in the comics medium these days, greater than we’ve ever seen in America. We don’t have to look at movies or television for legitimacy. We can look to the reviews in major publications, we can appreciate the fact that works in this medium are receiving serious, contemplated analysis and acceptance by the world at large.

We can make a statement when we want to, we can tell a rip-roaring story when we feel like it. And as readers we can enjoy a work that says something directly, indirectly, or just indulges in pure escapist fare. As Jules Feiffer said in his play Little Murders, that’s all right.

This is the golden age of comics, folks, where our choices can range from a reggae version of Mary Had A Little Lamb to something as bold and – to some – as offensive as Give Ireland Back To The Irish.

And don’t forget to support your favorite rabble-rouser.

Mike Gold is editor-in-chief of ComicMix.

Review: Spain Rodriguez’ ‘Che: A Graphic Biography’

  • Uncategorized
  • September 21, 2008

spain-che-4855693

“Spain” Rodriquez and “Che” Guevara. Manuel and Ernesto. Two legends, one living, the other, well, not so much.

Spain has been a cartoonist for more than 40 years, one of the first and most visible and influential storytellers of the underground comix movement. While others were preoccupied (often brilliantly) with their X-rated tributes to Harvey Kurtzman, Max Fleischer and other visionaries of their childhood, Spain was telling adventure stories of urban America, often featuring his character Trashman. His works have a strong left-wing tilt. He continues to be active, contributing to [[[American Splendor]]], Blab! and [[[Tikkun]]], and he produced the highly acclaimed graphic novel [[[Nightmare Alley]]] for Fantagraphics. He’s been fairly active in recent years on the comics convention circuit, often appearing with S. Clay Wilson.

Che was a handsome medical doctor (specializing in leprosy) and revolutionary, part of the insurgency force that overthrew the Cuban puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista and his American mobster masters, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. When, in 1967, he was killed as he was organizing in Bolivia, Che became more than a mere martyr: he became an icon. Today, his likeness (inspired by Jim Fitzpartick’s classic illustration) is well-merchandised by capitalist clothing manufacturers in America. He even had floor space at the New York Licensing Show a couple years ago.

It was only a matter of time before Spain turned his professional attentions to Che. Actually, I’m surprised it took this long.

If you’re one of those people who reduce Dr. Guevara’s work down to that of an evil godless Commie, then this graphic novel is the exact right thing for you, as long as your life insurance is paid up. If you think the left might have had legitimate cause for their actions, you’ll like this as well. If you’re open-minded and curious about the events immediately to America’s south during the 1950s and 1960s that had such an overwhelming impact on our society and our political system, then this book is essential.

(more…)

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