FF1987: Dinosaur Rex

Dinosaur Rex #1-3 by Jan Strnad and Henry Mayo.

What a fun series.

This is another one of the comics from the Upshot imprint, edited by Jan Strnad.  The imprint was supposed to be action oriented entertainment, I think.

They only managed to publish three series before cancellation (Dalgoda: Flesh and Bones, The Miracle Squad and this one), but at least one more was featured in the ads, although I forget what it was called.  (So research.)

Dinosaur Rex is ostensibly an action adventure series about hunting dinosaurs, but it is, at heart, en hommage to the Jeeves series by PG Wodehouse. Above we have Wooster. And it’s very amusing.

Henry Mayo’s artwork is quite well suited for this type of thing, too. It has an old-fashioned kind of sheen, reminding me a bit of 70s artists doing versions of Al Williamson. He does leave quite a bit of open space that colourist Tom Luth fills in ably.

The backup feature in all three issues is a story by William Messner-Loebs and Dennis Fujitake that seems to be another homage: This time to Keith Laumer and Retief. It’s about a bureaucrat who has to deal with an invasion of (yes) dinosaurs. Weirdly enough, Jan Strnad’s next project would be to adapt Retief for comics, so some synergy was going on here…

And, as always, I adore Fujitake’s artwork. All his people look like aliens and all his aliens look like people, so it all just works so well on the page.

The last two issues are in black and white. Mayo adapts his artwork substantially to the new format: It becomes more detailed, and has more shading and more solid blacks. I think it looks even better than in colour… more stark and moulded.

Kim Thompson takes over as the editor (from Jan Strnad) this issue, and explains (at length) why the book dropped the colour (sales), and hints at why he’s taken over as editor (personal falling out between Strnad and… people?).

The Wodehousian hi-jinx aren’t much affected by the behind-the-scenes drama.

Both the main feature and the backup feature reach their very satisfactory conclusions in the third and final issue.

Somebody should reprint both stories somewhere, because they’re very funny. Finding a venue might be difficult, but isn’t everything digital these days? Huh? Where’s my lawn?

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Gwene Is Up Again, Too

After a month-long hiatus after the troubles, Gmane’s sister web site, Gwene, is back up again, too.

Gwene allows you to sign up RSS feeds via the web site, and then you can read those feeds by pointing your news reader at news.gwene.org.

rememberGwene also used to have a web-based interface to browse the contents, and I may resurrect that at some point, but it didn’t really seem very… useful.  Everything on Gwene is already on the web, and replicating that just seems rather churlish.  But writing it in Node was kinda fun.

FF1987: Dog Boy

Dog Boy #1-10 by Steve Lafler.

Lafler had (self-published, I think?) Dog Boy under the Cat-Head Comics moniker for a few years, but moved to Fantagraphics in 1987, and restarted the numbering.

I didn’t read Dog Boy back in the 80s. That is, I had the first issue, and I vaguely remember being vaguely puzzled. Vaguely. I liked serious comics, and I liked funny comics, and I loathed “spiritual” stuff, and I can see why I wouldn’t find Dog Boy appealing.

But I got all the issues now, so let’s read.

Ah, yes. Very undergroundish: Bikers, werewolves, werewolf bikers and super-exaggerated cartooning.

This page is rather representative. Dog Girl has a machine gun, Dog Boy tries to break in, violence ensues, and then you have a non sequitur. It’s amusing… The Dixie cup telephone is Zippy-ish, but the violence isn’t. It’s a bratty, drunken, druggy update on 60s underground tropes, I think?

I kinda like the tension between the cartoony Dog Boy head and the more non-cartoony figure work.

That is pretty funny, I have to admit. But vaguely. I only admit it vaguely.

The third issue is the “How To Publish Comics Books: The Direct Market.” issue. It’s mostly just jokes about Dog Boy wanting to start his own comic book, but there’s one pretty incongruous page:

That sounds like actual advice. Reading Dog Boy I get the feeling that he has less of a plan on how a story is going to unfold than most cartoonists.

Lafler vaguely apologises for getting very political this issue, but I think there’s like three pages of overtly political stuff here, and the rest is the normal goofiness.

Lafler explains his technique, and I think he was accelerated here:

Much cosmic.

And very political, too!

I’ve been wondering who Lafler’s art reminds me of, but I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on it. But this drawing from a late issue, at least, looks quite a bit like Kim Deitch…

After ten issues, Dog Boy was cancelled due to low sales. Lafler has continued to do comics, and is still active today.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

FF1986: The Miracle Squad

The Miracle Squad #1-4 by John Wooley and Terry Tidwell.

This comic book was part of the Jan Strnad-edited Upshot line of comics, which didn’t last very long. And this was, I think, the only one that Strnad didn’t write himself.

It’s in colour, which I guess means that Fantagraphics thought that this 30s B-movie inspired series would sell. Reading it now, it’s difficult to understand why that is: The story (about gangsters inexplicably trying to take over a movie studio) isn’t very exciting, and the artwork is… basic? I think that’s the right word.

The colouring, by Tom Luth (who’s been colouring Groo the Wanderer all these years) isn’t as trippy as some comics Fantagraphics were publishing around this time, but it’s still slightly odd. Perhaps it’s the work of the colour separators, S*M Graphics?

Oh, yeah, the people who work at the studio help protecting the studio. Frankly, the storyline doesn’t make much sense, but, then again, as Wooley writes in the essays on b-movies in the back of each issue, that’s what those films were like.

But I bet you they weren’t this boring.

The essays are kinda interesting, but there’s too much of the stuff above. C’mon.

The last two issues were printed in black and white, so I guess the series didn’t sell after all. Whoda thunk. Gary Dumm (of American Splendor fame) took over the inking, which beefed up the art considerably.

A second series of this stuff was published by Apple Press. Tidwell seems to have done quite a bit of work for adjacent publishers, like Eternity, but apparently stopped doing comics after a while. And the same with Wooley, but he’s now a writer.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

FF1988: Itchy Planet

Itchy Planet #1-3 edited by Leonard Rifas.

Leonard Rifas published a number of comics in the 70s under the Edu Comics banner, and Itchy Planet continues pretty much in that vein: Informative pieces and political agitation.

There’s even a motto.

So you have reviews, text pieces and things like this page: A survey of comics about AIDS.

But most of the pieces are traditional comics about the issues at hand. The first issue is about nuclear war, mostly, and Larry Gonick (of A Cartoon History of the Universe fame) does an energetically drawn piece on the paradox of mutually assured destruction.

Rifas himself does one on nuclear winter, and includes text that you may be surprised by.

The second issue is about comics, and Joyce Farmer does a really good five page piece on when a bookstore in Orange County, California was busted for selling (among other things) Tits & Clits. (A comic book Farmer had co-created.)

Mary Fleener does a pretty atypical (for her) one-page comic on superheroes.

The third issue is about US politics. Do you remember those good old days when we were incredulous about how stupid George Bush the Elder was? Oh, I remember them fondly. Reading 80s angry polemics about internal politics now feels like escapism.

Piece by Steve Ross and Peter Kuper.

But then we have Spain to bring us back to Earth again with a comic about El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Oh, well.

A fourth issue, on the environment, was announced, but was never released.

Rifas didn’t publish many comics after this series, I think, but went into education.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.