1963 the forgotten highlight of Image Comics first few years part 01 Mystery Incorporated

 

In April of 1993 the above cover ,Pencils by Rick Veitch and inks by Dave Gibbons,caught my eye at my local comic shop. I was scanning the huge wall of new releases and the guy dead center of the cover with the big green cratered planet head grabbed hold of my imagination.

I pulled a copy down and on the bottom of the first page I saw the creator credits.

Quickly glancing back at the front cover and giving it a much closer look I realized what 1963 was. It was Image giving some of the best talent of the era a chance to pay tribute to the Silver Age of Marvel Comics. Let's look at the talent working on this issue. First up you have Alan Moore,who at the time I knew from Swamp Thing and Watchmen. Moore in 93 and even now many years later is one of my favorite writers. Like on the cover handling the pencils on the interiors is the legendary Rick Veitch. Veitch I knew back then from not only his art and writing work on Swamp Thing,he was one of the pencilers when Alan Moore was writing Swamp Thing,but also I had read and loved the recent Brat Pack mini series Veitch wrote and drew. Slinging the ink around is the amazing Dave Gibbons,another guy who had worked with Alan Moore before. Most notably on Watchmen where Gibbons was the penciler. Don Simpson as far as I know hadn't worked with Alan Moore before this project. While Simpson is the letterer on this issue I knew him for being the artist and writer on Megaton Man and Border Worlds. Marvin Kilroy,the colorist,I had never heard of.

By spring of 1993 it had been a long time since Alan Moore had wrote any superhero comics. And it had been a long time since Moore wrote something that wasn't a bit dark. With 1963 Moore and all the other members of the  creative team got a chance to create a love letter to the spirit and creators of all those great comics coming out from Marvel. Back in 1963 Marvel started a shared superhero universe with Fantastic Four #1. It is fitting that the first issue of the 1963 comic series is Alan Moore's homage to the Fantastic Four.

The Planet is this universe's version of The Thing.With the only real major difference is The Planet can change back into his human form at will. Something The Thing couldn't do. The comic starts off with the Planet trying to enter and test out Mystery Incorporated's Headquarters,the Mystery Mile. As the Planet is making his way further into the HQ he runs into the other members of the team.

Crystal Man is the first to try and stop The Planet. Crystal Man is the Mr Fantastic clone. Instead of being about to stretch his body is made of crystals and he can shapeshift.

You can see how Crystal Man's best efforts barely slow The Planet down much. Up next is Kid Dynamo.

Kid is the Human Torch bootleg. But instead of bursting into flame,flying and throwing fireballs Kid Dynamo changes into electricity,flies and throws thunderbolts.

Like the Human Torch,Kid Dynamo can be subdued with water. Which The Planet quickly does. Guess it's time for the 4th and final member of the team to take a shot.

The final member is Neon Queen. She is the Invisible Woman variant. But instead of just becoming invisible Neon Queen can turn into many different types of gases. She uses this to finally stop The Planet.

Look how in just 5 pages Moore manages to introduce the entire team and show us their powers and a bit of the family dynamics this team has. 

Then on the next page there is a small thing. But while it is small it is just the perfect way make this comic an even bigger tribute to just how much Marvel changed the way superhero comics were with those early issues of Fantastic Four.

See how in the bottom right hand corner of the panel we get told what issue of Mystery Incorported the incidnet Crystal Man mentions happened. That is something Marvel invented and it helped make the fans realize that all the Marvel titles were tied into each other. 

After we get a quick recapping of the teams origin. Which is very similar to the Fantastic Four's origin the story skips ahead a bit. Neon Queen notices someone strange on a security camera.

She tries the gas trick that worked on the Planet a few pages earlier. But oddly the strange man with a bow appears to get better after walking backwards through the cloud. Then he just disappears in a bright flash. Neon Queen summons the rest of the team.

Crystal Man figures out that the strange intruder had entered the Maybe Machine,I'm guessing this is a combonation of the FF's time machine and their portal to the Negative Zone. The team splits up to see if this shifty bowman did any damage to the HQ. And the next page... the next page is one of the greatest things in this issue.

Like Stan's Soapbox in the old Marvel comics this page of text tells us what other projects the creative team is working on. Plus Moore manages to throw in some subtle digs at how Marvel treated their employees back in the Silver Age. This page is really the only one in the issue that breaks the illusion that what we are reading is an old Silver Age issue.

The team is going through their HQ trying to see what all the mysterious man did and the security system that The Planet was testing out earlier starts attacking them. Kid Dynamo splits off from the team heads to the computer room and runs into the Arrow man. This man uses the same water trick used by the Planet earlier to cause Kid to go back into his human form then...

Notice how once Kid is inside the mini tv looking device he is surrounded by 1s and 0s.I'm guessing the Kid is now trapped in binary form inside some kind of data storage device. The bowman goes back through the Maybe Machine. And the rest of Mystery Incorporated travel into the Maybe Machine to hopefully rescue their teammate.

And so ends the story of issue 1 of 1963. But the issue isn't over yet. One way Marvel built up the huge following they had in the Silver Age was using their letter pages each issue. Fans could write in and talk about previous issues of the comics. And since their addresses were printed other fans would sometimes reach out to them. Being a homage to Silver Age Marvel of course 1963 #1 has 2 pages of letters. All of them made up. But still worth reading.

After the letters we get the pinups I posted earlier in this article. Followed by two great ads. The first is on the inside back cover.

Back before the speculator comic boom of the mid 90s busted Moondogs was one of the major comic chains in the US. They were mostly based in the Chicago area. AFAIK they went under in the late 90s. This ad is great. 1963 though saved the best ad for the back cover.

What a great comic. And every one of the 6 issues that got published is as good if not better. That is why it sucks that not only was this story never finished. But the odds of this series getting a trade or hardcover collection are slim.

The plan was after the 6 issues came out the underlining storyline,which involved the masked bowman we saw in issue 1,would be resolved. For various reasons this annual was delayed again and again. One of the delays coming when Jim Lee decided ,for what turned out to be one of many times in his career,to just stop doing work. After he got paid for the work he just didn't do it.

The other issue with the annual and why we will not likey see a trade or hardcover collection of what got published is the rights holders don't get along. Alan Moore owns the rights to some of the characters and Steve Bissette owns the rights to others. Something happened in the late 90s and now Moore refuses to work with Bissette ever again. Sucks that this great series will more than likely never get a conculsion. But thankfully this series came out when Image was overpublishing every thing they put out. So it isn't hard to track down all 6 issues for about a buck each. Which is cheaper than the cover prices.

Burger King Kids Club Tmnt Vhs

The Tick Edlund run part 02

The Tick Edlund run part 01

Crazy Man Crazy Gwandanaland TPB Flipthru

Peter Bagge and Me

 

Back when I was 12 I discovered Peter Bagge. I was at this great comic shop over in Biloxi MS. The owner had gotten to know me and knew that I was kinda gotten bored with the stuff DC and Marvel was putting out. "Hey you like Mad Magazine right? Here's the first two issues of Neat Stuff. It is like Mad." I bought them both,and he was great only charged me cover price. Once I was home I kicked back in my bed,put a Ramones cassette into my stereo. Then read both issues. I loved the energy in the art. I loved how Peter Bagge managed to capture what it felt like to be a teen in the mid 80s.

2 weeks later I was back in the comic shop. Telling the owner to put not only Neat Stuff on my pull list but to put anything Peter Bagge did on my pull list. Being a indie title Neat Stuff never came out on a set schedule. But I was lucky about a month after I got those first 2 issues,issue 3 came out. Plus the comic shop got in a small collection of Weirdo. Weirdo was a underground comix started by Robert Crumb. After a short bit Crumb turned the title over Bagge. The owner of the shop was nice and had put aside all the Weirdo issues. Of course I wanted all of them but only had 20 bucks on me. Thankfully this owner was a nice guy. He agreed to put the ones I couldn't buy that day aside and I could get them once I had more money.

Skip ahead a few years.I had turned 15 and was now starting high school. I goto the comic shop and learn that issue 15 is gonna be the last issue of Neat Stuff. I was mad. "Hey calm down. Peter Bagge is starting up a new title." Of course I told him to put this new title on my pull list. Wow even though it was only 4 months between Neat Stuff 15 and the first issue of Hate,it felt like years.

See in Neat Stuff Bagge had a pile of different strips. Goon on the Moon,Studs Kirby and my favorite The Bradleys. Hate was gonna focus on Buddy Bradley. Buddy got tired of being stuck in suburban hell that is New Jersey. So he moved to Seattle. Which was inspired by Peter Bagge's recent move to Seattle. And this was Seattle in the late 80s/early 90s. Long before the grunge music scene blew up. Long before Starbucks took over with their over-priced shitty coffee. 

I loved Hate. Buddy was sharing an apartment with a bunch of similar folks. Working what ever shitty job he could find. And going to lots of concerts. Now I was only 15 back then but I was already going to piles of concerts and it felt like Bagge talking directly to me.

Hate can be divided into two groups really. The first 15 issues were black and white. And had Buddy living in Seattle. Trying to find a girlfriend. And also trying to not get dragged down by the many schemes his friend Stinky got up to. Out of these first 15 issues issue 12 stands out the most to me.

In the issue Buddy and his slightly insane girlfriend Lisa had paid for a dealer's booth at a convention.Buddy was trying to make some extra cash at the con. But this was right before the comic boom of the mid 90s hit. So comics were dead but the bootleg/"Collectors" vhs was booming. Ya know what I'm talking about. The dealers that have on vhs,and in modern days dvd or Blu Ray,stuff that isn't out on that format. In the early 90s you could make big money dealing in vhs copies of stuff like the Green Hornet tv show or one of the many horror/sci fi/cult films that hadn't hit vhs yet.

At this convention there is a bootleg tape dealer,known as Yahtze. Yahtze and Buddy don't get along. While Yahtze is distracted Lisa steals a bag full of Yahtze's bootleg tapes. Our lead couple get a ride home from a long time con dealer and how this guy acts makes Buddy realize he doesn't want to be like him. Lisa and Buddy get upstairs to their apartment. And Lisa tells Buddy about the stolen bag of vhs. Buddy freaks out cause Yahtze is known for being extremely violent. And of course not long after they start watching the first of their stolen vhs there is a knock at the door. It's Yahtze. Yahtze comes in and it looks like Buddy is gonna get his ass handed to him. But Lisa grabs a baseball bat and starts smashing all the VHS. Yahtze gets the fuck out of the apartment. And the issue ends with Buddy and Lisa watching the only tape she didn't smash.

With issue 16 of Hate a lot was changed. First off before this Peter Bagge was doing all the work. He wrote,drew and lettered the comic. With Hate being a pretty big indie hit Fantagraphics wanted to start publishing it in color. Peter recruited Jim Blanchard to handle the inking duties. And IIRC Bagge's wife was hired to do the coloring. Also this is when Hate became more than a comic. Each issue would have articles written by people like Dame Darcy or Selwyn Harris. Plus you got short 1 or 2 page comics from various artists. Bagge's has said he wanted Hate "to become something like Zap Comix. Where you not only get work from a well known creator but also you get stuff from some lesser known creators." I was introduced to so many comic artists and writers through the second half of Hate.

The biggest change was that in issue 16 Buddy and Lisa moved to New Jersey. Buddy was tired of struggling in Seattle. So his plan was to move back in with his mother and hopefully have a better life back where he grew up.Buddy and Lisa had many wacky adventures once they moved to New Jersey. I personally loved it once Buddy started up a collectibles store with a friend. 

Not long before issue 27 came out I moved. Like Buddy I needed a change. So I moved from the MS gulf coast area,where I had lived for 90% of my life,to the Gulf Coast area of TX. Got lucky and found a great comic shop with in two weeks of moving to TX. And added bonus the owner of the comic shop was also a Peter Bagge fan. Whenever a new issue came out I would hit up the comic shop on new comic day. Buy my comics. Then the owner and I would sit down at the back of the shop. At the tables that once it hit 3pm would be full of people playing Magic the Gathering. We would read the new issues of Hate and PReacher.

March of 97 it is new comic day. I took my lunch break hour from work to goto the comic shop. I walk in and Jeff the owner has a upset look on his face. "Hate is ending with issue 30!" Fuck! I kept wondering why Peter Bagge was ending the series. It was a huge seller. 

Issue 29 came out not long before Xmas in 97. I remember reading it while riding back to MS for Xmas.Once I got back from my Xmas vacation I sat down and wrote a long,it was 5 pages,letter to Peter Bagge. Thanking him for providing me with so much entertainment for so long.

Then the long wait started. I knew issue 30 was the end of Hate but had no idea when it was coming out. Finally in May of 98 it was published. And WOW what a way to end the series. Buddy finds out Lisa is pregnant with his child. And now Buddy has total ownership of the collectibles store. Plus in the last panel of the story Lisa and Buddy find a magic whistle. That is another thing I love about Peter Bagge. He is known for taking ideas from the fans and putting them in the comic. Way back in issue 12,I think it was 12,a fan wrote in and asked for a story where Buddy and Lisa find a magic whistle.

In October of 98 Hate Jamboree came out. This oversized comic was packed with interviews with people that worked on Hate. Plus all kinds of hard to find Peter Bagge strips and sketches. I love this special but have one major gripe about it. For some reason the cover is made of newsprint. Which means it gets damaged super easy.

Skip ahead to 1999. I'm suffering from Bagge withdrawls. Goto the comic shop and get great news. First off Bagge is one of the many artists working on Spicecapades. This was a magazine sized one shot all about the Spice Girls. No I'm not joking. It was a huge indie comix about the Spice Girls! Bagge's kid is a huge Spice Girls fan. So Bagge's strip was about him going to a Spice Girls concert with his kid. This is another kinda hard to find Bagge comic. The comic  shop I went to when it came out only ordered 3 copies. 1 for me,1 for the comic shop owner,then one to be put on the wall. Add in that it was magazine sized means since 99 I have seen 2 copies of it in the wild.

YEAH! was a short lived series. Published by DC through the Homage imprint. I remember hearing about this series months before it started. "What Peter Bagge's new series is published by DC. AND IT'S ALL AGES. AND THE ART IS BY GILBERT HERNANDEZ!!!" Yeah! was about an all girl rock band. On Earth they can't get any gigs. But through out the universe they are the most popular band of all time.Managed by a crusty old white dude named Crusty this was one of the best comics coming out at the time. But sadly no one was/has read it. Look at those cover up above. That is just great art. Another thing that made YEAH! stand out was the letters page was ran by Crusty, Yep the manager of the band would answer the letters. 

After YEAH! ended Bagge kept busy. He would do Hate Annual each year. Which normally had a long Buddy and Lisa story. Then piles of extra stuff. He wrote and drew an amazing Hulk story. Bagge even took over the Bat Boy comic strip that was published in Weekly World News. And sure I already had every issue of YEAH! but I wanted a nice trade paperback collection. And in 2011 Fantagraphics did just that. I was happy that this great and kinda unknown comic was getting collected. But there was a few small things wrong. First off YEAH! was a full color comic. The Trade was in black and white. The other thing was for some reason the letter pages weren't reprinted. 

Hope yall enjoyed my rambling about Peter Bagge.There has been many times where I buy a comic just cause it has a page of Bagge art. Many hours have been spent digging through a comic shop's back issue bins hoping to find a new to me Bagge creation.

Bare Bones Winter 2020 issue Showcase

31 Days of Horror 2020 Day 31 Hubie Halloween

 

TITLE-Hubie Halloween

SOURCE-Netflix

Yea the newest Adam Sandler flick. Made for Netflix. I've seen a handful of his made for Netflix films,and until this one they were all pure shit. Like you had a dozen Krystals and an order of chili cheese fries the day before.

So I kept seeing reviews for this. Lots of them calling it "good" or "worth seeing". Ok yea lets give this a shot.

Sandler is Hubie. He lives with his mom and he loves Halloween. Living in Salem Massachusetts well yea Halloween is a huge deal. Hubie is just trying to be sure everyone has a safe and fun Halloween. But Hubie also gets scared easily.The rest of the cast is made up of Sandler film regulars. 

Early on we learn an escaped lunatic from the nearby mental hospital has escaped. Hubie's new neighbor,played by the BEST ACTOR EVER STEVE BUSCEMI,is acting odd. And everyone in town besides Julie Bowen picks on Hubie all the damn time. But no matter what Hubie keeps helping out and being nice to everyone.

Then about halfway through the film the main people that fuck with Hubie start disappearing. Of course I'm thinking the escaped lunatic is doing this. "Hey maybe this will morph into a slasher?" NOPE!

The lunatic escaped to come get Steve Buscemi to come back to the hospital. LOL yea and the lunatic is Rob Schnider. Who is actually funny in this role. Yea I was shocked.

So who is grabbing the people that fuck with Hubie? Well his mother of course. She is gonna burn them at the stake on Halloween night. The cops show up,Kevin James is great as a fat mullet having bearded cop with Keenan Thompson as the other cop. Hubie's mother manages to get away. Hubie ends up with Julie Bowen. And it skips ahead a year.

Now Hubie is married to Julie. He is also mayor of the town. But still rides his bike around. Yea forgot to mention that. Like The Water Boy,Hubie don't drive. He rides a bike everywhere. And always has a thermos on him. Which is loaded with gadgets like he is Inspector Fucking Gadget. 

But back to the flash forward. Hubie is riding his bike to his office and now the gang of kids on bikes that were terrorizing him earlier in the film,they wave and are nice to Hubie. And we learn the lead kid's name is O'Doyle!

This feels like Sandler kinda wanting to not only connect most of his previous films but also shut the door on that universe. It's not bad. Better than any of the other Netflix made ones so far.

Hubie Halloween gets a C+.

31 Days of Horror 2020 Day 31 Tarantula

TITLE-Tarantula!

SOURCE-Svengoolie Airing on MeTV

Well this October has sucked. Between the horrid weather,had a few days when it hit the low 90s. And then the recent Hurricane Zeta coming real close to where I live,just ain't been a good month.

I had planned on doing a bunch of stuff for Halloween day here at the blog. But something out of my control ate up all my free time for most of this month. Been many days were I barely managed to get a film watched and written up. 

So I needed something to watch today. Flipped thru the DVR and saw I had Sven's airing of Tarantula. I hadn't seen this film in over 30 years at least. Plus hey it's Sven. I try to watch him most weeks cause he is one of the few horror hosts left.

Directed by Jack Arnold,Tarantula came out in the mid 50s from Universal. Which is why Sven is airing it. Sven has a deal with Universal to show their films. THis is another of those 50s b/w giant creature cause of that evil science films.

Leo G Carroll,who's not over a barrel,is testing out a serum on various animals and insects. It cause them to grow big. But early on we see some kind of mutanted human/monster attack Leo. Seems Leo tested this serum out on a person and it caused them to mutate horribly. Leo ends up with the serum in his body. So the rest of the film I'm just waiting on him to transform. When Leo gets attacked a Tarnatula! escapes from the hidden lab. Now this spider is like the size of a 10 lb dog. But once it takes to the hills it GROWS!!

The Tarantula! wanders around and does stuff. Looking horrible most of the time cause they used what appears to be rear projection to make the spider look big. And Leo starts to mutate!

Our lead John Agar is out with his woman riding up and down the highways in the desert. There is at least close to 10 minutes of the film that is just those two driving up and down what I think is the same road just shot from various angles.

Leo fully mutates and goes after Mara Corday,the afore mentioned lady. But the Tarantula! attacks the house they are in. Leo is killing by the collasping roof. And John and Mara run off. They run into the cops. But the bullets ain't doing shit to Tarantula! So the Sheriff calls in the Air Force. Who use NAPALM on Tarantula! and kill it.

That is the air force pilot that kills Tarantula! Look closely at him. Looks a bit familiar... It's Clint Eastwood!

The Sven airing was great. I ended up watching this with my mother,been having to help take care of her this month since she just had knee replacement surgery end of September. She liked how Sven would give some history on most of the cast of the film. Cause for people like John Agar and Leo G Carroll she knew their faces but couldn't remember what she knew them from. Well before and after the ad breaks Sven was there to fill in that info.Not bad for a mid 50s creature feature.I enjoyed it and am happy I saw this again after years.

Tarnatula! gets a C+

31 Days of Horror 2020 Day 30 A Good Marriage

 

TITLE-Stephen King's A Good Marriage

SOURCE-Some file I found on a flash drive I lost 5 years ago

Yea I'm guessing the file I watched was a DVD rip. But wow first off Full Dark,No Stars is my favorite Stephen King Novellea/Short Story collection. And over the past 10 years 3 of the four Novelleas have been made into films. I covered Big Driver and 1922 in the past. So time to complete this trilogy. What is it with Stephen King novellea collections only have 3 of their 4 stories made into films? Same thing happened with Different Seasons.

Joan Allen is our lead and she discovers a hidden compartment in her husbands garage/workshop. In this compartment is a pile of IDs. IDs of women who had died in the past years by a uncaught serial killer. Anthony Lapaglia is her husband and part of his job is him being gone for days at a time. Joan starts checking the dates of when her husband was gone and the various unsolved deaths. They match up! She now is sure that her husband of 25 years is a monster.

Based on the BTK Killer,Dennis Rader,this is a pretty well done serial killer film. The cast isn't big names but Joan and Anthony are great as the leads. This will be the third time I have watched the movie. And really need to track down a DVD or Blu Ray of it.

Out of the so far three films based on stuff from Full Dark,No Stars A Good Marriage is in second place. 1922 is amazing and easily gets 1st. Good Driver was hindered by being made for Lifetime. So is the worst,but still worth seeing.

If you haven't read Full Dark,No Stars and/or seen any of the three films I mentioned...GO GET THE BOOK AND SEE THE THREE FILMS!! I see people griping often about how there has been no good horror in years. And here are 3 damn good horror films that no one mentions.

A Good Marriage gets a B+.