Editor’s Note: This originally appeared at www.michaeldavisworld.com on January 28, 2011. It is being reprinted here without permission. It’s been reformatted to meet ComicMix’s high editorial standards.

A long time ago in a galaxy, blah, blah, blah…

…Denys Cowan, Bill Sienkiewicz and I shared a studio next to some creators who are all legends now. It was the second silver age of comics and we were in the thick of it.

Howard Chaykin was doing American Flagg!, Walt Simonson was on Thor, Al Milgrom was doing Spider-Man. Jim Sherman was in the studio but I forgot what he was working on, I do remember it was bad ass.

The studio where all those superstar upstarts were was called Upstart Studio.

Duh.

Also at Upstart was Frank Miller who was doing Daredevil and about to do Ronin. I seldom saw Frank but when I did more often than not he would ask what I was working on and was just a great guy. I remember being a bit jealous when Bill and Frank started working on Elektra and for the life of me I can’t remember why.

All that said, how’s that for a line up?

Those guys (Denys included) sounds like a comic fan’s dream team even now. Speaking of my best friend Denys a few years forward in time from our studios days would see him nominated for an Eisner for best penciler… twice. People forget just how badass Denys Cowan is.

Our studio never got an official name although Bill liked to call it Bill and his little helpers… the bastard.

As far as what we were doing at Bill and his little helpers Studio, Bill was working on Elektra and The New Mutants; Denys was doing The Black Panther for Marvel, V (the comic adaption of the original TV series) and Vigilante for DC.

What was I doing? Nothing great in comics, that’s for sure.

I was working on children books, movie posters, etc. I had one comic book assignment for the Marvel magazine Epic. The assignment was given to me by the late great Archie Goodwin. I made an appointment with Archie hoping for a cover assignment I never dreamt he would give me an interior job.

I loved comics but I was trained as an editorial and mainstream illustrator. I never learned to do comics like, say, a Denys Cowan who can imagine and draw anything from his head. I need reference, I need to look at stuff, and I need dozens of layouts before I start a finished piece. Comics that are fully painted and tell a non-liner story at that time were rare. I was always jealous (still am) of guys that can do that make it up from nothing jazz.

Dwayne McDuffie recently commented on multitalented guys that can write and draw. Truth be told Dwayne, just as a writer, is light years away from where I will ever be as a visual storyteller. That, to me, is multitalented. When Christopher Priest was the editor on the Spider-Man book he once dissected a cover painting I did for him like he was a high school science teacher and I was the frog. He’s also a hell of a writer and just as good a musician. Reggie Hudlin glides between producing and directing movies and TV shows to writing some of the best comics I’ve ever read. Those guys are multitalented.

20 or so years ago, except for Heavy Metal and a few other outlets, painted comics were few and far between. The graphic novel as a fully painted editorial piece of art and content was not quite there yet. It was about to come into its own lead by people like my brother from another mother Bill Sienkiewicz. The work of Kent Williams, George Pratt and Dave McKean was just around the corner as well but not there yet.

Howard Chaykin saw over 20 years ago where comics were going and produced a few painted books before just about anyone did.

Like an asshole, I tried to do comics the way Denys, Walt, Howard and Frank did. I was too stupid to listen to Howard Chaykin when he told me, “Do what you do, the industry is changing and you can bring something new to it.’

Some of the best advice I’ve ever been given. It’s right up there with, put your hands on the wheel and answer in a civil tone of voice, “Yes officer, whatever you say officer.”

I wish I was joking about the cop advice, but I assure you I’m not.

I did not listen to Howard. Years later Mike Gold told me the same thing after I delivered a Wasteland story, which was not my finest hour. I didn’t think he would but Mike gave me another Wasteland story and said, “Do this like any other illustration assignment.” The story was about South Africa and I nailed that mother.

Of all the high profile regular illustrations gigs I was doing (Newsweek, NBC, etc.) the assignment I was the most excited about was Epic. It was a six-page story I was writing and drawing and taking forever to do because I wanted to do it like “regular” comics artists did. Could not do it then, can’t do it now.

Long story short, I will never forget those late night talks with Howard, Bill, Frank, Jim, Al and Denys. It was indeed the second silver age but for me it will always be my golden age.

Bill and his little helpers. Somehow that does not brother me anymore.

Yeah, I know this is pretty damn sappy.

That’s OK. Sap is the new black.

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

Today, as I write this, is September 11, 2011.

Ten years.

The World Trade Center. The Pentagon. Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I’m watching the memorial services.

Tom Brokaw, David Gregory on NBC and MSNBC. Anderson Cooper and Candy Crowley on CNN. President Obama with Michelle and President George W. Bush with Laura. Mayor Bloomberg. Rudy Giuliani. Vice President Biden.

Breaking news: a truck bomb has killed at least 50 American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The ticker on CNN now reads: Global Terror Evolves. Al Qaeda under attack but keeps changing as Peter Bergen says: “Ten years out, terrorism remains, but is very different.”

Yesterday I read the “debut” issue of Action Comics #1. The one with Superman in a t-shirt, jeans, and Timberland boots.

It’s a different look for him.

He’s different.

The story opens as Superman breaks into a corporate (corporate = evil) meeting and manhandles the CEO (CEO = malevolence). The police (hired mercenaries?) rush in. They order Superman to put down the CEO. His answer, in the last panel on page three: “Just as soon as he makes a full confession. To someone who still believes the law works for the same for rich and poor alike…”

I turn the page.

Two-page spread, splash panel. Superman is standing on the edge of the roof, holding the CEO up with one hand, threatening to drop him. His eyes are burning, glowing red. He’s firing up his heat vision, eyes burning and glowing red. The CEO is screaming for someone to save him. The cops have their weaponry aimed at him. It’s a stand off. And Superman finishes his thought:

“…because that ain’t Superman!!!!”

It sure ain’t.

I could write a thesis on how American culture has changed since the last ten years. But better men and women, better writers and thinkers have done that already, so I won’t.

But I will say that I believe there is a disease that is rampant in this country. It’s a highly contagious disease that causes its victims to change facts. In America its sufferers believe that the United States and its government has always “played fair.” That the original colonists never slaughtered the native culture they found here or that 100 years later the U.S. Cavalry didn’t lace blankets with smallpox to kill the “Indians” of the Great Plains. That those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. That slavery itself was a fair and equitable system in which master and slave worked for the common good. That President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a scion of one of the wealthiest families in America, was a socialist. That Eisenhower was a tool of the communists. That the Civil Rights Act was propagated and staunchly defended by Southern Republicans and fought with tooth-and-nail by the Democrats. That the World Trade Center was brought down by controlled demolition explosions and that a missile hit the Pentagon was launched by “elements” inside the Bush administration. That Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. That Obama isn’t an American.

This is the culture of America today, September 11, 2011. It’s a suspicious and cynical culture that would rather dream nostalgic dreams of a past that wasn’t than to work together to shape those dreams into reality.

But is it so different from the culture that shaped two kids from Cleveland in 1932, two kids who believed in “the American Dream” of truth and justice for all, and created an avenging crusader a “superman” who beat up mobsters and wife beaters, profiteers and lynch mobs? That culture supposedly welcomed immigrants, and then barred them from communities and colleges and jobs. It was a culture that restricted voting and allowed segregation. The Superman created in 1932 and who debuted to the world in 1938 was a result of the suppressed anger of two Jewish boys who saw the inequities and untruths in the American reality, but still believed in the American dream.

Ronald Reagan, for all his faults, was right when he spoke of America as that “great shining city on a hill.” America, the idea of America, is still, will always be, in my not-so-humble opinion, the quest, the Arthurian legend, come to life.

My question is, and my worry is, how can the kids reading Grant Morrison’s 2011 version of Superman still believe in that quest, those ideals, that American dream that the hero has always represented when he clearly states, That Ain’t Superman?

Ten years later.

No.

It’s not.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

On his blog, New Pulp Writer Martin Powell offers a sneal peek at Tom Floyd’s atmospheric in-progress piece for their graphic novel called Number 13, based on Edgar Rice Burrough’s The Monster Men. This authorized edition, licensed by ERB, Inc., will be published by Sequential Pulp and Dark Horse Comics.


For more information on this, and other, Sequential Pulp Comics titles, visit http://www.sequentialpulpcomics.com/
For more information on Martin Powell, visit http://martinpowell221bcom.blogspot.com/
For more information on Tom Floyd, visit http://www.tomfloyd.net/


Artwork © Tom Floyd