Gun Fury Returns!

Gun Fury Returns #1 - #4 

(Aircel Comics/Malibu Graphics, June - September 1990)

Story: Barry Blair
Art: Dave Cooper

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

New York City has been overrun by costumed heroes and villains. Millionaire Donald Lump believes Gun Fury and Ammo can restore some semblance of order, so he coaxes them out of retirement by funding new equipment for them and providing a base of operations. The city has been overrun by costumed heroes and villains, and only Gun Fury can restore some semblance of order!

Gun Fury and Ammo were the stars of a ten-issue superhero parody series that ran from January to October of 1989. There are hints that, despite the series wrapping up with the heroes retiring at the end of #10, there were course adjustments in the final 2-3 issues, because the creators knew cancelation was looming due to low sales. 

In mid-1990, Gun Fury and Ammo returned for four more whacky adventures of questionable taste, brought to us by the original creative team of Barry Blair (writer and creator) and Dave Cooper (artist and sometime co-plotter) in the limited series "Gun Fury Returns". In keeping with the tone of the original series, "Gun Fury Returns" is full low-brow spoofs of popular comic book characters and dominant industry business and storytelling trends. (You can read my thoughts about the original series by clicking here [issues 1-5] and here [issues 6-10].

One thing that immediately jumps out if you put the four issues of this series side-by-side is that the covers get progressively more unappealing and downright ugly. Take a look:

Does the interior artwork and stories follow this same progression, you may ask? Generally no--except for #4 where artist Cooper didn't do the excellent ink washes that graced all the pages up until that point. There is a fairly steady level of quality throughout the series... which is both good and bad.

"Gun Fury Returns" follows the rhythm that the first series fell into as of issue #6: Each issue features a self-contained story, with Gun Fury and Ammo being the only recurring characters and everything being tied together with a thin subplot that's little more than a running joke. In this mini-series, the subplot is about Gun Fury's hemorrhoids, which should tell you something about the level of humor present within the pages.

The first issue of the mini-series is perhaps the weakest. I remember reading it back in 1990 and being disappointed in it. I particularly found the Batman spoof that is the central feature of the issue to be overly juvenile and crass (even by the standards of the previous series), as well as a little trite and redundant since Gun Fury and Ammo were already something of a Batman spoof. 

Thirty years later, I still find "Batman and Throbbin" and the related, embarrassingly obvious scatological humor to be lame, but, because there have been one redundant Batman movie after another, I also feel like this target is even more deserving than it was Back In The Day. The Alfred-type character made me chuckle back then, and it is still one of the more amusing (and darker) elements of the parody. 

Issue #2 offers an X-Men spoof -- The Yes Men. The story here is an improvement over the first issue, and the subplot involving Gun Fury's hemorrhoids actually serves a purpose other than providing some mildly gross gags. This issue's main target was the seemingly never-ending, ever-present X-Men crossovers that Marvel was dishing out during the late-1980s--and into the 1990s, as well as the big-boobed women that became increasingly common in the pages of comics. I was never much of an X-Men reader--the mutant stories in "Marvel Comics Presents" was all that I followed--and the incessent crossovers into titles I DID follow were a contributing factor to my getting away from Marvel Comics (except when I had to read them for work purposes). For this reason, some of the humor in this issue may be lost on me, but them being cast as basically a fetish sex club was something I found very amusing. Further, over all, the timing of the gags were better in this issue than any one previously; Blair and Cooper seem to have found a perfect rhythm... and this carries through to the end of the series.

Issue #3 skewers two indie comics properties that exploded in popularity during the 1980s, ElfQuest and the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles. This issue features what is probably the most mature industry commentary featured in all 14 issues in which Gun Fury appeared. Wrapped within the usual, off-color gags, the story takes shots at how art can take a back seat to creativity (with caricatures of ElfQuest creators Wendi and Richard Pini callously exploiting dog-riding elves to enrich themselves) and how putting greed above all else will eventually come back to haunt and destroy creators (or at least their reputation and stature).

This issue may stand out from the rest, in part because the villains here are satirical versions of friends of Blair--and they would eventually hire him to contribute to their expanding ElfQuest fiefdom, in the "New Blood" spinoff series. More care and less vitriol was probably infused into this script than any of the others--although I assume the Pinis were consulted on the jokes, because Richard comes off REALLY badly. (For what it's worth, I had some small dealings with Richard Pini during the early mid-1990s and my last halfhearted attempts to break into comics. He came across as a nice guy.)

The mini-series closes with a Spider-Man spoof, including the sentient suit from "Secret Wars" (which eventually became an even dumber concept via the invention of the Venom and Carnage characters). Story-wise, this issue is on-par with #3, and Blair's comedy version of Peter Parker at his most whiny is hilarious. The only disappointing aspect of this issue is that the art feels unfinished and a bit empty, because the excellent ink wash finishes  are not applied here as they had been in the previous 13 issues. (The panel that opens this post is from "Gun Fury Returns" #4.)

 

Like most satire, "Gun Fury Returns" is, to a large extent, a product of its time. Much of the humor will be silent or even baffling to readers who aren't familiar with tropes or controversies or fads that permeating comic books and the comic book industry in the late 1980s/early 1990s. The original 10-issue series was broader based in its humor, in the sense that the pot-shots at fans and creators and publishers involve stereotypes and issues that continue to present day, so in that sense its held up better to the passage of time. As a snap-shot of history and as a irreverent and off-color walk down memory lane for Gen-X comics fans, "Gun Fury Returns" still entertains.

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For an excellent exploration of the man behind the creation, Barry Blair, click here.

It's a Sala Saturday!

Here's another early one-page comic from the great Richard Sala. Created in 1985, it's another prime example of how how easily Sala mixed the creepy and strange with the comedic. (Click on any panel for a larger, more readable version.)

The Further Adventures of Gun Fury

Gun Fury #6-#10 (Aircel Comics/Malibu Graphics, June - Oct 1989)
Story and Layouts: Barry Blair
Art: Dave Cooper

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The city needed a hero. What it got was Gun Fury and his sidekick Ammo. They were better than nothing at all. Well... most of the time...

"Gun Fury" was a series that poked fun at superheroes, the comics business and fandom, and mass-media trends of the late 1980s. The first five issues presented and complete storyline that introduced Gun Fury, Ammo (and Peter Pane, the replacement Ammo), and a supporting cast that served the double purpose of poking fun at superhero tropes and taking pot-shots at comic book industry figures. You can read a review of those issues by clicking here.

With the sixth issue of the series, there were a number of changes. First, Dave Cooper became both the penciller and inker of the title, while Barry Blair continued to be the writer and provided page layouts. The story-telling style also shifted from a serial that continued from issue to issue to each issue being self-contained. The supporting cast all but vanished, with Gun Fury and Ammo being the only recurring characters. (There's also a minor running gag revolving around Gun Fury and Ammo being couch potatoes, deciding what crimes need to be fought on what they see on television.)

Another big change is that beginning with these issues, the characterization of Gun Fury as an eccentric, mildly delusional blowhard into someone who is just one step shy of being a complete idiot who exists in a world that exists only in his mind. It leads to some funny one-liners, but, overall, I think it weakened the humor of the title, pushing from a series that made fun of the ultra-violent superheroes of the late 1980s to one that seemed contemptuous of superheroes in general.

The stories in the individual issues are hit-and-miss. The least interesting are in issues #6 and #9, mostly because they cover ground and recycle jokes that were already made in issues #1 through #5 and feature thin stories. 

Issue #6 has little noteworthy in it. It's mostly the above-referenced recycled jokes from earlier issues--pot-shots at comics dealers and collectors--along with setting up the "modern" method by which Gun Fury and Ammo find crime to fight. Gun Fury is also really, REALLY stupid here in ways that are more befuddling than funny. (I don't disagree with the commentary... it's just that the ground had already been covered.)

 Issue #9 makes fun of merchandising and, curiously, pedophiles. It's generally a badly executed mess--with a couple slapstick gags that rely on motion. The scenes could have worked, but Dave Cooper was just not up to the task, failing both to capture the motion and the timing of the gags. There's this iconic moment dropped into the middle of those sequences, but it's too little to save the issue:

In fact, the most interesting thing in #9 is the letters column. It gives insight into the lead-time when it comes to publishing and how plans can change: The editor makes reference to a coming "Gun Fury: Year One" story arc that would detail Our Hero's early adventures--and it would have most likely been a spoof of any and all "origin series" that were being pumped out by Marvel and DC Comics at the time. As it ultimately turned out, the only "Year One" type material we'd get was in issue #8, which revealed how Gun Fury was first set on the path to being a hero and how he got his costume. It's an amusing issue, but it also treads ground that was covered earlier in the series. (I wonder if this was a set-up for the storyline mentioned in #9, or if it was salvaged and slightly reworked and dropped into the mix when it became apparent that the series wasn't going to last much longer. It could explain the only truly lame part of the issue--a not-very-inventive fourth-wall-breaking gag that's drawn out longer than it should have been.)

The best issues in the second half of the "Gun Fury" series are #7 and #10. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are also the ones that have most effectively survived the passage of time and could in some ways have been published a couple years ago, despite the fact they are firmly rooted in 1980s pop culture.

During the 1980s, there was an explosion of televangelism on cable TV; it didn't matter what time of day it was, you could find religious programming somewhere. There were even channels devoted to nothing but religious programming, such as the Christian Broadcasting Network (for the born-again, evangelical crowd) and the Eternal World Television Network (for the Catholics). 

Issue #7 of Gun Fury pokes fun at these flashy religious productions geared toward television and the, even in 1989, well-documented and laughable hypocrisy of many televangelists. The humor and themes in this issue are as fresh now as they were then, and the climax is perhaps the best of any issue in the series. Gun Fury is in full classic superhero caricature mode in this issue, but it's all very funny.

Meanwhile, issue #10 feels as fresh as the day it was published because it lampoons issues that seem to have exploded across the American cultural landscape over the past two or three years: Gang violence and petty crime of all sorts, and the appearance of casual police violence.

The issue also feels like it might have been published yesterday because there's a Donald Trump caricature that is central to the issue's story. While the character isn't involved in politics, it's an illustration of how long Donald Trump has been a big part of the American cultural landscape.

As hinted at throughout this article, issue #10 would be the  final issue of the "Gun Fury" ongoing series, with the last page seeing our heroes heading off to retirement and tropical climes--and offering up final, heavyhanded, double entendre joke.

 

This would not be fend of Gun Fury and Ammo, however. While "Gun Fury: Year One" would never materialize, Our Heroes would eventually return in a mini-series. Look for my opinions of it in this space at some future date!

(Meanwhile, if you have any memories or opinions about "Gun Fury" or any other Aircel Comics, that's what the comments section is for! Also, for an excellent exploration of the man behind the creation, Barry Blair, click here.)

It's a Sala Saturday!

 Here's another early work from the late, great Richard Sala. It was collected in his anthology from Kitchen Sink Press "Black Cat Crossing" (1993) and it dates from the mid- to late 1980s. (Click for a larger, more readable version.)

This is my favorite of the sci-fi/horror genre-based one-pagers that Sala did.

The Coming of Gun Fury!

Gun Fury 1-5 (Aircel Comics/Malibu Graphics, January - May 1989)
Story and Pencils: Barry Blair

Inks and Washes: Dave Cooper

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

In a city where innocent citizens are being preyed upon by the rich and powerful, and by the violent and psychopathic; where the media lies as much as they tell the truth; deluded goofballs can't tell the difference between comic book fantasies and reality, a cry went up for a hero. Gun Fury answered that call... to the regret of many.

"Gun Fury" was a 10-issue series by Barry Blair and Dave Cooper, with the latters artistic style becoming increasingly dominant as the series progressed. Published by Aircel (which was by this time an imprint of Malibu Graphics) from January of 1989 through October 1989.
It featured broad, often crude, satire of the "grim and gritty" comics that were trendy at the time, as well as making fun of fandom and comics industry.

The first five issues are liked by several intertwining storylines and subplots. Along the way, the title character Gun Fury as a demented, ultra-violent hero who's part 1960s Batman and 1980s Punisher. His secret civilian identity is Jack Luger, mild-mannered staff writer at Fan Graphics, a firm that publishes several entertainment-related magazines and comic books. He has a money-grubbing, homophobic boss, and a go-getting investigative journalist female co-worker with a superhero fetish. 

In the first issue, Gun Fury's boy sidekick, Ammo, is killed in a clash with minions of the mysterious Master. Over the next few issues, he adopts and breaks in teenaged orphan Peter Pane as the new Ammo while simultaneously protecting the boy from the Master's agents, including fellow superhero Captain Rearguard who is duped into furthering the evil schemes. Meanwhile, a second more odious threat is lurking in the shadows, preparing to ooze onto the scene. 

Over the course of five issues (which form a complete, self-contained storyline), Blair and Cooper poke fun at superheroes as they were developing in the mid-1980s and into the 1990s... all grim and gritty and violent in the wake hits like "The Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns", with a few dollops of hamfisted social commentary thrown in for  good measure. Perhaps the most clever aspect of Blair's approach to the topic was having the grim-and-gritty co-exist with the lighthearted melodrama and downright goofiness that were the hallmarks of the superhero comics he'd grown up with. It gives a bizarre feeling to Gun Fury's world that is perfect for the title.

What is less perfect is Blair's sense of comedy. While this is an effective spoof in broad strokes, it's less effective when you zoom in. 

First, Blair was just not very good at coming up with one-liners, and the timing is even sometimes off on gags that span panels or pages. His inability to come up with zingers that hit home is particularly obvious when he's trying to play with characters making unintentional double-entendres that are supposed to be plays on sexual activity--homosexual activity in particular. It's particularly painful when it comes to Gun Fury exclaiming "Justice is about to spurt from my loins!" (or some such battle-cries). Some of those kind of jokes made around the superhero suffering from PTSD known as Captain Rearguard work a little better, but not by much.

Second, some of the humor is just too mean-spirited for my tastes--and I'm the guy who produced things like "Bill Clinton Meets a Girl Scout" and "Super Muslim Bros." Reading these comics, it appears that Blair might have hated comics fans, comics retailers, and comics critics in general, and Gary Groth (the founder of Fantagraphics and a key figure in the comics industry when this series was published), since they're all stupid, perverted, gross, and/or money-grubbers who are corrupt to the core. Some of the shots at the comics industry are dead-on, but others just feel like Blair is grinding his personal axes and isn't terribly concerned if he's being funny or not. 

The best of Blair's industry commentary can be found in the scene where the Gary Groth stand-in is berating an editor and a pair of talented hacks for not delivering the promised issues, despite having been paid. The scene ends with the trio heading off to find ANOTHER publisher from whom to get paid for not producing a product. Most of it, though, just feels too venomous and personal to be amusing.

One thing that is of high-caliber and always close to perfect is the art. While not quite at the level of Blair and Cooper's other major collaboration, "Jake Thrash", the combination of Blair's slick, cartoony-with-a-slant-toward-the-manga-style (a decade or more before EVERYONE started doing it) and Cooper's chunky inks and brilliantly applied washes was the perfect visualization for the mixture of old-school superhero posturing married with modern-day gore and violence. The occasional playfulness with the "language" of comic book storytelling that shows up in the art is also very well done. The page below is from "Gun Fury" #1, and it's one of my favorites from the entire series.

Sometimes, when I break out these old comics and re-read them for review purposes, I find myself disappointed; I find that something I have fond memories of doesn't match those memories. That is not the case with "Gun Fury". I had the same reaction to reading it now as I remember having back then--it's fun but flawed. It's got great art and it's a decent spoof of All Things Comics as they stood ca. 1989, but it's dragged down by the writer spewing too much venom in various directions.

Watch this space for thoughts on "Gun Fury" #6 - #10. (Meanwhile, if you have any memories or opinions about "Gun Fury" or any other Aircel Comics, that's what the comments section is for! Also, for an excellent exploration of the man behind the creation, Barry Blair, click here.)

It's a Sala Saturday

"A Haunted Head" is an unpublished one-page story from the late writer/artist Richard Sala. It dates from the early 1980s, and it's an art style that he would move away from during the 1990s, as he developed as an artist and began to favor heavier, cleaner lines. It, however, is the Sala Style that most people probably encountered, as it's what appeared in the "Liquid Television" segments he created for the animated anthology series on MTV in 1991.

You can watch all six segments of "Invisible Hands", edited together in one video, on YouTube by clicking here. We'd embed it in this post, but it's in color, and we don't want to shock anyone's sensibilities!

Look Kids--Comics! (Plus an RPG supplement)

In the mid-1990s, Evan Dorkin published an anthology series at Slave Labor Graphics titled "Dork". It featured a few different series of short comics features (like the sit-com spoof "The Murder Family"), newspaper strip spoofs (like "Myron the Living Voodoo Doll") and random humorous comics ranging in length from one panel to several pages, and from silly to viciously biting. Some were original to the pages of "Dork", and others were reprinted from elsewhere.

Here's a small sample of the comic strips for your amusement! (Selected from "Dork #1".)

(To support Evan Dorkin's current comic book efforts, become a subscriber to his Patreon page!)

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As an extra-special treat, here's material that lets you incorporate Myron the Living Voodoo Doll into your roleplaying game campaigns.

AN RPG SUPPLEMENT

Design: Steve Miller * Eye Rolls: L.L. Hundal

Based on "Myron the Living Voodoo Doll" by Evan Dorkin

(Myron the Living Voodoo Doll is used without permission... 

and in the hopes that Mr. Dorkin doesn't sic lawyers or Myron on us.)

INTRODUCING MYRON

Myron is the most unusual of voodoo dolls. He is alive, and he wanders about of his own volition. He does not initially seem different from other voodoo doll, but he has the following unique traits:

   * Myron is self-aware and he can speak. If a person thinks to talk to him, he will respond. He will explain his unique nature, but only if asked. (Myron is too busy contemplating the meaningless nature of existence to volunteer information to those he encounters.)

   * Myron can't help but become bonded either to the last person who handles him, or a person that individual chooses to place a curse upon. Whatever harm (or other extreme physical situation, such as being flung across a room) that subsequently befalls Myron also happens to the person who is subject to his inherent voodoo magic. Once bonded to Myron through his voodoo enchantment, (Myron doesn't necessarily want bad things to happen to people, but he is a voodoo doll so he can't help it.)

   * Myron is a tireless wanderer who is forever seeking new horizons. He never remains in one place for more than a few days. He is also one of the greatest escape artists to ever exist. Once he decides it's time for him to move on, there is nothing that prevent him from doing so. (Myron is completely immune to magic that tries to bind him or keep him trapped. Any such attempts cause him to teleport to a random location far, far away... while the person who attempted to magically trap him is subjected to Myron's inherent voodoo curse.)

   * If Myron is destroyed, he reforms 1d6 days later at a random location (see "Where in the World is Myron?, below). If someone had intentionally tried to destroy him that person is now subject to Myron's inherent voodoo curse--until it is shifted onto someone else. (Myron cannot be destroyed by any conventional--or even unconventional--means. The only ways to put an end to his existence and the inherent voodoo curse he carries is to either convince him that he doesn't exist via philosophical debate, or to bring him into the presence of God [the Clockmaker, the Creator, the Big Guy Himself], which will make Myron realize that existence is not meaningless.)

HOW DO THE HEROES ENCOUNTER MYRON? (Roll 1d6)

This table is used to both determine how the party first meets Myron, as well as how they might randomly encounter him again later. 

1-2. They find him among the property of a foe they've just defeated.

3. One of them receives a package from an unknown sender. Myron is inside.

4. His is found laying outside one of their homes.

5. A friend (or even an enemy) contacts them and begs them to track Myron, because he or she has fallen victim to Myron's curse and is suffering from random injuries and other mishaps.

6. He drops into one of their laps. Literally.

The GM should roll 1d20 once per game month after the party's first experience with Myron is resolved. On a roll of 1, they cross paths with him again.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS MYRON (Roll 2d20)

This table is used to determine where Myron can be found.

2. On a city street

3. In a daycare center

4. In a prison

5. In a city dump

6. At a train station

7. At a bus depot

8. By the sea shore

9. Along a busy highway

10. Along a country road
11. In the highlands
12. In a swamp
13. In a forest
14. In a jungle
15. In a desert

16. On a golf course

17. In a school

18. At a construction site

19. In the mountains

20. In a coal mine

21. In a cemetery

22. In a war zone

23. In a crack house

24. In a teenaged girl's bedroom

25. In a teenaged boy's bedroom

26. In a church

27. In a mosque

28. In a synagogue

29. In a serial killer's lair

30. In a politician's office

31. Floating on a lake

32. On a weather balloon

33. Floating on a river

34. In a high-rise office building

35. In a top secret government lab

36. On Paradise Island

37. On Gilligan's Island

38. At John Wick's house

39. At the home of a player character's loved ones

40. At a NASA or other space-exploration launch site.

HOW LONG DOES MYRON STAY? (Roll 1d6)

Myron stays in any given area for a limited amount of time, even if the party arranges for him to be trapped (as indicated in "Introducing Myron"). This table determines how long he can be found in the area determined by rolling on "Where in the World is Myron?"

1. 24 hours

2. 48 hours

3. 72 hours

4. 1d6 days

5. 1d6 weeks

6. 1d20+10 hours

   After the indicated period of time has passed, the GM rolls on on "Where in the World is Myron?" to determine where he can next be found.

DAMAGE SUFFERED FROM VOODOO CURSE (Roll 1d12)

Each day, it's relevant to determine if a character is injured due to being subject to Myron's inherent  voodoo curse, the GM must roll 1d12. On a "12" he or she rolls on the table below to determine what harm comes to the sufferer. If 1-2 hit points are taken, the character suffers minor discomfort or a sudden appearance of bruises or mild burns. Anything beyond that is painful and possibly lethal. Charactes may roll appropriate saving throws and benefit from any resistances to types of damage they may possess.

   Myron is destroyed if he takes more than 30 hit points of damage. He reappears at a random location 1d6 days later. While Myron is out of commission, there is no need to see if a cursed character suffers an injury.

Types and Amount of Damage

1. Cold Damage: 2d10

2. Crushing Damage: 2d10

3. Drowning Damage: 2d10

4. Electrical/Energy Damage: 2d10

5. Falling Damage:  2d10

6. Fire Damage: 2d10

7. Cold Damage: 4d10

8. Crushing Damage: 4d10

9. Drowning Damage: 4d10

10. Electrical/Energy Damage: 4d10

11. Falling Damage:  4d10

12. Fire Damage: 4d10

(If you enjoyed this post, there's lots more at the NUELOW Games blog. Go check it out!)

Public Service Saturday with Evan Dorkin

As a public service, Shades of Gray re-presents Evan Dorkin's Little People-starring comic book adaptation of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye". This American novel, originally published in 1951, has been described as one of the greatest coming-of-age tales ever written. This proves that there's no accounting for taste.

Writer/artist Evan Dorkin read it so you don't have do. Be thankful. (Click on the panels for larger, more easily read versions.)

(This material originally appeared in Dork #1, published by Slave Labor Graphics in 1993. To support Evan Dorkin's current projects, join his Patreon Page.)

'Sweet Childe': An example of the Boobs & Blades comics craze.

Sweet Childe #1 (New Moon Studios, 1993)
Script: Vinson Watson
Art: Harold Cupec

Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After being ignored by her spiritual leaders, set upon by sexually harrassers, and coming under threat of a murderous ex-boyfriend, Tasha is given a magic amulet by a strange old lady. From then on, when she is set upon by a male predator, she transforms into a blood-thirsty, killing machine that leaves no menacing males (or even friendly ones) alive.

From about the mid-1980s and through most of the 1990s, busty women in little clothing who ran around disemboweling their opponents were all the rage. Such characters existed before, and they exist to this day, but for 10-15 years, they were everywhere. They were so prevalent that they'd take over comics where they were initially secondary characters (Lady Death in "Evil Ernie") or existing characters would literally be mutilated and transformed into sword-wielding babes in skimpy outfits (Psylocke from "Captain Britain" and "X-Men").

One example of this comics trend was "Sweet Childe" from New Moon Studios. I came across it in a pile of underground and alternative and self-published comics from the 1980s and 1990s that was recently donated to the Shades of Gray cause (so there will be even more reviews of black-and-white comics coming to this space).

Story-wise, I'd say it's about average for the Boobs & Blades fare of that period. The general content and tone seems inspired equally by slasher films and 1980s exploitation flicks, with characters also drawn from the pool of stock figures from those genres. Where "Sweet Childe" stand apart, however, is that I don't remember any other title being quite so dedicated to its viewpoint that nearly all men are predators just looking for a woman to abuse or rape... and even those who aren't actually are, because if they have consensual sex with a woman who they hook up with in a bar, well, that just proves that they're predators who deserve to be killed. 

That last part bothers me--that one of Tasha's victims is a guy with him she picks up on the bar, goes back to a hotel with, and has mutually agreed upon sex. She and the man are both very clear on what they are looking for. And yet, she brutally murders him for having sex with her. This makes no sense in the context of the rest of the issue. Maybe it's because I like a little bit of a "morality tale" aspect to my horror stories, but this makes no sense to me and seems out of key with everything else that happens in the issue. If the transformed/possessed Tasha (the "Sweet Childe" of the title?; I am realizing I'm not sure why the book is called that) is a Furie out to avenge the evils of men against women, why does she then become the very evil predator she is supposed to be targeting? Maybe Watson was setting Tasha/Sweet Childe up to be the villain of her own series (as was the original intent with Marvel's Punisher? The final page makes me think this might be the case, but it could just be sloppy writing. Actually, the way the victim's connection to other characters is revealed, I'm thinking this might be the case more than anything.

Art-wise, it's a bit below average. One problem is that Cupec's art appears flat and static, despite the violent action that dominates the book. Maybe this wouldn't have been a problem if a good colorist had worked on the pages, but this is black and white, and Cupec doesn't use enough black to make things pop, or he uses it badly. 

The biggest problem, though, is that the action is sometimes hard to follow both in individual panels and pages and across pages. Harold Cupec's choice of PoV in a number of panels is odd and it causes disruption in the flow of the story because it's often unclear how the events in one panel led to what is happening in the one following--and this sometimes leads to a cascade failure where it becomes unclear what's happening from one page to the next.  There's a mass-slaughter sequence onboard a subway train where this becomes a huge problem as it turns into a perfect storm of all of Cupec's weanesses.. It also doesn't help that he tries to do some Tim Vigil-style gore... but he's no Tim Vigil. (That said, I adore Tasha/Sweet Childe's facial expression in the last panel. It may be the best moment in the whole book.)

Given the widespread popularity in some quarters of the notion that all men are evil rapists just looking for the right opportunity to show their true colors, I suppose "Sweet Childe" might hold some appeal to modern readers--if it was available anywhere or had made it past the first issue. I've not been able to find evidence of either being the case; I can't find any information on the title nor its publisher nor the publisher's parent company anywhere on the Web.

I am torn between awarding this title a Low Five or High Four on the 0 - 10 scale used here at Shades of Gray. I probably would not have bothered getting issue #2 of "Sweet Childe" (or even #1, frankly) Back in the Day unless I'd been at a convention and either liked a conversation/encounter I had with the creators, or it was given to me for free. That said, part of me is curious to see where "Sweet Childe" might have gone if it made it to issue #2 and beyond. Was our "heroine" going to be the villain in her book, as the final page seems to hint at? And why is the series called "Sweet Childe" when no one in the story seems to fit that name? Would there have been answers to those questions? Probably not, but the fact that I was even motivated to ask them tells me there's a spark of something here, even if the creators weren't fully able to fan it into life. That's worth some consideration, so I am erring on the side of generosity.

If, in the unlikely event you come across a copy of "Sweet Childe" out there, or remember reading it, feel free to hop on and share YOUR take on it.

Forgotten Comics: Mad Dogs

Mad Dogs #1 - #3 (Eclipse Comics, Feb - April 1992)
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Victor Toppi
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An Assistant District Attorney tasks a burned-out detective on the verge of suicide with assembling an off-the-books task force of violent, former law enforcement officers to go outside the rules to make cases against the city's most dangerous criminals. Their first target is a brutal drug lord who is seeking to expand his operation beyond Chinatown by crushing and coopting rival Jamaican gangs and through alliances with the Mafia.

"Mad Dogs" is a brutal, bloody cop story where the line between the heroes and villains is razor thin and the moral high ground upon which the heroes of our story stand is only inches above the cesspool that the drug dealers, murderers, and gangsters they are taking on wallow. The tone and pacing is very much like the gritty Italian and American cop dramas of the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, it feels far more cinematic it its execution than most modern comics, despite the fact that many of those feel more like they're made up of storyboards than comic book panels and pages.

Writer Chuck Dixon takes a "show, don't tell" approach to almost every aspect of "Mad Dogs" as it unfolds across three action-and story-packed issues. The first issue is spent mostly introducing the soon-to-be team of former cops through flashbacks that reveal the violent incidents that got them cashiered and closes with an introduction of their soon-to-be target that illustrates exactly how vile he is. The dialog is well-crafted and, although sparse, gives each character a distinct voice. If you take the as the homage to "grindhouse" cop flicks that it is--and therefore accept the reality that governs those kinds of movies--this is an excellently done story. Heck, the script here would have made a better movie than most of the films it emulates.

Artist Victor Toppi has a style that very effectively captures the decaying urban landscape that "Mad Dogs" takes place in. He also great with action scenes, and he understands how to guide the reader's eye on a comics page with character positioning and panel layouts. He also fully understands how to use shadow and light when working in a pure pen-and-ink medium, and he is the perfect artist for the black-and-white presentation of this book. Unfortunately, Toppi is not good with faces; whenever he attempts to draw a face that isn't showing a neutral or a batshit-crazy enraged expression, he can't pull it off. When the situation calls for a character to be laughing or smiling, more often than not, the facial expression seems closer to blind, top-of-the-lungs screaming rage. It seems that Toppi is aware of this weakness and he tries to hide it with heavy shadows on the faces that are supposed to be smiling or showing amusement... which just makes them look creepy or maniacal. Over all though, the work here is excellent and it reminds me of the black-and-white comics I grew up reading while living in Europe. (Toppi was, near as I can determine, an Argentinian who worked extensively for Italian and British publishers during the late 1970s and well into the 1980s. "Mad Dogs" was his final published work before he passed away in 1992.)

According to the house ads in "Mad Dogs" #3, this series was the pilot project for several other mini-series that were going to take their cues from the "grindhouse"-type action movies and that would also be published in black-and-white. I find it interesting that Eclipse Comics would decide to start producing black-and-white materials at a time when other publishers were abandoning the format--Eclipse had been producing color books when black-and-whites were all the rage among the independent publishers. Personally, I prefer black-and-white comics over most color ones (which is partly why the NUELOW Games comics/rpg products are what they are), so I would have loved to see more high-quality b/w titles, but the follow-up titles never materialized: Eclipse ceased publishing in 1993 and were formally out of business by 1995.

Although "Mad Dogs" has its flaws, it's impressive due to the way it captures the pacing and tone--and the brutality--of the gritty cop dramas that were coming out of low-budget production houses in Italy and the United States during the 1970s and 1980. The series has never been reprinted in a collected edition.

It's alluring but ultimately unremarkable

Lookers: Allure of the Serpent (1999)
Script: Barry Gregory
Art: Pat Quinn

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Sisters Michelle and Tanya Nichols, owners of and lead investigators for Complete Recovery Inc. (CRI), are hired to investigate whether or not it was the Loch Ness Monster is the creature that decapitated man on the lake's shore.

"Lookers" was a series from Avatar Press that ran during the late 1990s, in a string of one-shots, mini-series, and in the pages of the anthology title "Threshold". The title is a pun, as it focused on the adventures of a detective agency headed by a pair of beautiful sisters in their 20s, with Tanya being the pair's brawn and Michelle being the brains. Both were child prodigies, and they are generally the smartest people in whatever room they happen to be in.

The one-shot "Lookers: Allure of the Serpent" is a so-so example of their adventures. It's got an interesting set-up, but it is predictable in every way. The moment the Mort Sidney Company executive seeking to hire CRI mentioned cloning and the "Jurassic Park"-style attraction, I guessed that the "Loch Ness Monster" was their creation and that CRI was not so much being hired to investigate a gruesome death but to serve as a PR vehicle... and that guess was further validated when Michelle was established as an internationally renowned Loch Ness Monster skeptic who had published a scientific paper on the matter while still a child.

Despite its predictability, or perhaps because of it, "Allure of the Serpent" entertains in the same way a low-budget action movie or an episode of a TV drama does; it's enjoyable because you know what's coming (with perhaps a small variation). If viewed as an easily digested piece of formula fiction, "Allure of the Serpent" does it's job, nothing more and nothing less. Even the abrupt ending feels like the way a cheap movie or TV episode might close. (A one-page denouement at the expense of a house ad would have been nice.)

The art is passable, with Pat Quinn delivering some clean and crisp black-and-white drawings that generally keep the eye moving across the pages in the right direction and keeps the story flowing, even if the P.O.V.'s in  some of his panels don't quite make sense. Barry's Gregory dialog is also reasonable, always natural-seeming even with the plenty of wordy exchanges between some of the characters. Unfortunately, the speech balloons communicating those exchanges are sometimes  laid out in ways that are counterproductive to easy reading.

There are some random touches that I suppose are artifacts of how Avatar (and many other publishers) during the late 1980s and through the 1990s marketed their wares--with sex and nudity and more sex in the pages of the comics. Because, dontchayaknow--comics are for adults now!

In "Allure of the Serpent", we get a bizarre scene of a guy grabbing his girlfriend 's boobs at a time and place that makes no sense contextually nor reflects that dialog in the panels where it happens... and we're treated to a little full-frontal nudity courtesy of Tanya after she gets dunked in the lake by Nessie. While the second scene can be viewed as in keeping with the genre "Lookers" emulates, the first one is out of place and just a little gross.

I suppose I could also mention the fact that our heroines probably shouldn't have just worn swimsuits onto Loch Ness; I understand the water there is consistently fairly cold. (Although I could be wrong... and this IS a comic book after all. Skintight outfits are required for male and female characters whenever there's even a slight reason for one.)

In the end, like the low-budget action films it reminds me of, "Lookers: Allure of the Serpent" is entertaining but generally unremarkable... and perhaps the best thing about it is its poster (or cover in this case).

Introducing: Judy Drood, Girl Detective

One of the signature characters of Richard Sala was Judy Drood, a character who was part tribute to, and part spoof of, the ever-popular teenaged detective Nancy Drew. He created her in 1993 in what was intended as a one-shot short story for "Black Cat Crossing", but, when a friend several years later asked to read more about Judy Drood, Sala was more than happy to oblige.

Today, we present Judy's origin tale, the precursor to not one but two of Sala's major works--"Mad Night" (originally serialized in issues 1-12 of "The Evil Eye" as "Reflections in a  Glass Scorpion") and "The Graverobber's Daughter" (a graphic novel published in 2005).

Meanwhile, in the Shadows...

(Look for reviews of Judy Drood's adventures in future posts on this blog. Meanwhile, join us next Saturday for more Richard Sala art and A Very Peculia Halloween!) 

Saturday Serial: My Father's Brain

"My Father's Brain" by Richard Sala originally appeared in Blab #8 (1994) and today, it reaches its surprising conclusion. Click on the strips for larger versions. Please come back next Saturday when we'll present a complete Sala story!

MY FATHER'S BRAIN: PART THREE, THE CONCLUSION

By Richard Sala

Meanwhile, in the Shadows!

By Richard Sala

Saturday Serial: My Father's Brain

"My Father's Brain" by Richard Sala originally appeared in Blab #8 (1994). We're serializing it as part of our annual effort to spread the encourage the Halloween Spirit. Click on the strips for larger versions. Please come back next Saturday for the shocking finale to this ninja-laden tale of stolen-brain intrigue.

MY FATHER'S BRAIN: PART TWO

By Richard Sala

To Be Continued...

Meanwhile, in the Shadows!

Saturday Serial: My Father's Brain

"My Father's Brain" by Richard Sala originally appeared in Blab #8 (1994). We're featuring it here over the next few Saturdays (along with other stray samples of Sala's wild and spooky work) as part of our annual effort to spread the encourage the Halloween Spirit in the young and the old. Click on the strips for larger versions. Please come back next Saturday for Part Two.

MY FATHER'S BRAIN: PART ONE

By Richard Sala

To Be Continued...

Meanwhile, in the Shadows!

Richard Sala's creations is a stew of all the things that get covered by this blog. We should have done more to spotlight his work than just feature a couple stray cartoons during 2009 and 2010. But... the Saturday Serials give us the perfect opportunity to put him front and center!

'Peculia' is a swift and entertaining read

Peculia (2002, Fantagraphics)
Story and Art: Richard Sala
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Peculia wanders the countryside and neighborhood around her mansion and encounters various supernatural menaces, usually after disregarding advice from her faithful servant, Ambrose.

Peculia was one of Richard Sala's signature characters. She's a young woman who usually appears wearing a "little black dress", When she's not being menaced by odd creatures or villains who seem to have stepped out of B-movies or gothic romances, she's being stalked by the mysterious Obscurus and his agent Justine. Exactly what the relationship is between Obscurus, Justine, and Peculia is never revealed, but there are hints that Obscuras and Peculia were once romantically involved, or at least very good friends, and that Justine is jealous of them. What caused the rift between Peculia and Obscurus, why he is isolated in a secret base and always masked is also never revealed--although he seems to be suffering under some of magical curse--but his spying on Peculia through Justine just as often puts Peculia in danger as saves her from it.

"Peculia" collects nine short tales that originally appeared in "Evil Eye" 1-9 during 1998 and 1999. Each is a self-contained story, and each feature a mix of horror and humor for which Sala's whimsical, simple art style is the perfect vehicle. The tone of stories reminds me of Poverty Row 1940s horror flicks with more than a little 1960s/70s Eurotrash horror movies and sex comedies throw in--and I'm invoking those in a positive way, as I find many of those movies quite fun and these comics capture the best of what they have to offer.

Over the course of the nine tales, Peculia's strolls brings her into encounters with weird gremlins who are attracted to music; three witches with a strange secret; a crazed widower who would cause many Edgar Allen Poe characters to reexamine their choices in life; a strange mystic sorority and the chutuloid monster that ends up dooming them, a homicidal girl battling a cult devoted to Bast; hoards of zombies and maniacs; a psychopathic psychiatrist conducting unholy research on unwilling subjects; Death himself; and more weird townsfolk than you think could be packed into one book. And all of this while Justine and Obscurus lurk nearby to either cause or solve problems.

While the first five tales in the book get increasingly good, and the remaining four hold steady-qualitywise, I still have to quibble with the fact that we never get an explanation for why Obscurus is seemingly cursed with total anonymity toward anyone but Justine; it's the one thing that I was disappointed over when I got to the end of the book. On the other hand, I was so delighted by the tiny continuity detail that tied the first story and eighth story in the book together that I am almost able to overlook my annoyance and so keep my rating of Seven of Ten Stars for the book.

"Peculia" is a swift and enjoyable read. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys crisp, straightforward cartooning and horror stories told with a sense of humor. (As a final note, I should mention that the book also contains a never-before-published color story. It's a fun, wordless little tale, but we don't talk about things that aren't in black-and-white in these parts!)

Post-Script From the Department of Odd Observations

In her first appearance--originally in "Evil Eye" #1 (1998)--she wore a pair of black shoes, perfectly matched to her little black dress.

There was a time where Peculia wore shoes...

She left those shoes behind halfway through her second appearance appearance--in "Evil Eye" #2 (1998)--and she went barefoot everywhere from then on (which was 10 more issues of "Evil Eye", various pin-ups., and "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires" (2005).

... but, once she left them behind, she never wore shoes again.

What does this mean? We have no idea, but we further observed that most female characters that appeared in the Peculia stories were barefoot. (The four panels above were excerpted from the first and second stories in the "Peculia" (2002) collection.)